rtiss 

HF 

nil 

C85 

■m- 

□ 

eta 

-IT 

UC-NRLF 

II 11  ill 

00 

o^ 

en 

<3^ 

^>^ 

Co 

o 

-6^ 


After  Reading  Hand  to  a  Friend. 

DOCUMENT  NO.  1 

HE  DEFENDER 

Devoted  to  the  Protection  of  American  Labor  and  Industries. 

PUBLISHED  BY 

THE  AMERICAN  PROTECTIVE  TARIFF  LEAGUE 
No.  339  Ero&dway,  New  York 


>C.  NO.  1 


NEW  YORK,  AUayjSX^  191^ 


4  CENTS  EACH 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 
PROTECTIONIST 


ashington  Introduced  the  American  System  of  Protection  to 
Domestic  Labor  and  Industry,  and  Lincoln  Aided  in 
Establishing  and  Perfecting  That  System. 


AT  THE  REQUEST  OF  THE  AMERICAN  PROTECTIVE  TARIFF  LEAGUE  HON. 
IGEORGE  B.  CURTISS,  OF  BINGHAMTON.  N.  Y.,  AUTHOR  OF  "THE  INDUSTRIAL 
DEVELOPMENT  OF  NATIONS"-ONE  OF  THE  MOST  IMPORTANT  WORKS  ON 
PROTECTION  THAT  HAS  EVER  BEEN  WRITTEN— AND  ALSO  AN  HONORARY 
MEMBER  OF  THE  AMERICAN  PROTECTIVE  TARIFF  LEAGUE,  HAS  PREPARED 
AN  ARTICLE  ENTITLED  "ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  A  PROTECTIONIST."  THIS 
ARTICLE  APPEARED  IN  SECTIONS  FROM  WEEK  TO  WEEK  IN  THE  AMERICAN 
ECONOMIST.  AND  IS  NOW  PRINTED  IN  DOCUMENT  FORM.  MR.  CURTISS  HAS 
BESTOWED  UPON  THIS  SUBJECT  MUCH  THOUGHT,  MUCH  CARE  AND  EX- 
[TENDED  RESEARCH.  THE  VALUE  OF  HIS  LABORS  IN  THIS  CONNECTION  CAN 
HARDLY  BE  OVERESTIMATED. 


Lbraham  Liincoln  One  of  the  Great  Pro- 
tectionists   of    the    World. 

Lincoln's    public    career    as    a    writer, 
)eaker  and  Chief  Executive,  places  him 
the  foreground  of  the  great  construc- 
^e  statesmen  and  Protectionists  of  the 
rorld.     Washington  introduced  the  sys- 
1  of  Protection,  and  Lincoln  perfected 
Washington   signed    the  first   Protec- 
e  Tariff  law,   and  Lincoln   signed  the 
lighest      Protective      Tariff      law      ever 
>assed  by  Congress.     The  Protective  pol- 
^y  introduced  by  Washington  was  sup- 
ported   by    Adams,    Jefferson,     Madison, 
[onroe,  John  Quincy  Adams  and  Andrew 
rackson.      It   stood   for   forty-five   years, 
mtil  overthrown  by  the  friends  of  slav- 
and   the   enemies   of   the   Union,    but 
fas   restored    and   perfected   by   Lincoln 
md  continued  by  Grant,  Hayes,  Harrison 


and  McKinley,  It  was  overthrown  for 
three  years  by  Cleveland,  with  great 
disaster  to  the  country.  It  is  now  being 
assailed  by  Woodrow  Wilson,  but  the 
spirit  of  Washington  and  Lincoln  still 
lives   and   the   end   is   not  yet. 

Declarations   of  Abraham   Lincoln. 
He  Favored  a  "High   Protective  TariflE." 

"I  am  in  favor  of  a  National  Bank;  I 
am  in  favor  of  the  internal  improvement 
system  and  a  high  Protective  Tariff. 
These  are  my  sentiments  and  political 
principles."  (From  Abraham  Lincoln's 
first   political   speech,    1832.) 

How  He  Would  Restrict  Foreign  Trade. 

"If  I  be  asked  whether  I  would  de- 
stroy all  commerce  I  answer,  certainly 
not;  I  would  continue  it  where  it  is  nec- 
essary   and    discontinue    it    where    it    is 


ivill550-i 


// 


not.  An  instance:  I  would  continue^  ^' 
commerce  so  far  as  it  is  employed  in 
bringing:  us  coffee,  and  I  would  discon- 
tinue it  so  far  as  it  is  employed  in  bring- 
ing- us  cotton  goods."  (From  "Frag- 
ments   of   Tariff    Discussion."    1847.) 

The   Abandonment    of   Protection   Would 
Produce    "Want    and   Ruin. 

"The  abandonment  of  the  Protective 
policy  by  the  American  Government 
must  result  in  the  increase  of  both  use- 
less labor  and  idleness,  and  so,  in  pro- 
portion, must  produce  want  and  ruin 
among  our  people."  (From  "Pijag^ents  • 
of  Tariff  Discussion."   1847.)       ';  •.,/ 

The  Famous  Gpigrc^n}. .  ,*     ••,•,••■ 

"Abraham  Lincoln's  firsf '♦spl5ec]/*i(>ri«'  *; 
the  Tariff  question  was  short  and  to  the 
point.  He  said  that  he  did  not  pretend 
to  be  learned  in  political  economy,  but 
that  he  thought  he  knew  enough  to 
know  that  'When  an  American  paid 
twenty  dollars  for  steel  to  an  English 
manufacturer,  America  had  the  steel  and 
England  had  the  twenty  dollars.  But 
when  he  paid  twenty  dollars  for  steel 
to  an  American  manufacturer,  America 
had  both  the  steel  and  the  twenty  dol- 
lars.' That  was  the  sum  and  substance 
of  the  Tariff  question  as  he  viewed  it." 
(Editorial  in  the  Harvard  Independent 
of  Harvard,  111.,  of  June  9,  1894,  written 
by  Otis   S.   Eastman.) 

Had  Not  Changed  His  Views  in  1859. 

"I  was  an  old  Henry  Clay  Tariff  Whig. 
In  old  times  I  made  more  speeches  on 
that  subject  than  any  other.  I  have  not 
since  changed  my  views."  (Letter  from 
Abraham  Lincoln  to  Dr.  Edward  Wal- 
lace, October  11,   1859.) 

He    Stood    for    the    Republican    Platform 
of    1860. 

"In  the  Chicago  platform  there  is  a 
plank  upon  this  subject  which  should  be 
a  general  law  to  the  incoming  adminis- 
tration. We  should  do  neither  more  nor 
less  than  we  gave  the  people  reason  to 
believe  we  would  when  they  gave  us 
their  votes."  (Speech  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, delivered  at  Pittsburg,  Pa.,  Feb- 
ruary  16,   1861.) 

"That  while  providing  revenue  for  the 
support  of  the  general  government  by 
duties  upon  imports,  sound  policy  re- 
quires such  an  adjustment  of  these  im- 
posts as  to  encourage  the  development 
of  the  industrial  interest  of  the  whole 
country;  and  we  commend  that  policy 
of  national  exchanges  which  secures  to 
workingmen  liberal  wages,  to  agricul- 
ture remunerative  prices,  to  mechanics 
and  manufacturers  adequate  reward  for 
their  skill,  labor  and  enterprise,  and  to 
the  nation  commercial  prosperity  and 
independence."  (Chicago  Platform,  1860, 
Section  12.) 

Introductory. 

The  attitude  of  Abraham  Lincoln  on 
the  Tariff  question  has  been  left  in  par- 


tial obscurity,  while  his  opinions  on 
every  other  great  question  upon  which 
he  expressed  himself  have,  during  the 
past  twenty  years,  been  given  more 
prominence,  and  his  life  and  character 
subjected  to  greater  research  and  con- 
sideration than  those  of  any  other 
statesman  of  modern  times.  As  the 
emancipator  of  an  enslaved  race,  and 
the  Chief  Executive  who  saved  the  life 
of  the  American  Republic,  Abraham  Lin- 
coln stands  out  as  one  of  the  great  his- 
toric characters  of  the  world.  The  ex- 
alted position  which  he  attained  as  the 
emancipator  of  a  race  and  savior  of  a 
Ce'ijrptry  arrested  the  attention  of  the 
woVia*  and  turned  historians  and  schol- 
ane  <o  'a*,  critical  investigation  of  the 
c^ses^  of/his  success  and  the  sources  of 
his  power  and  influence.  As  the  result 
of  a  most  searching  inquiry,  he  is  ac- 
cepted today  as  America's  greatest 
President;  as  one  of  the  wisest  and  most 
profound  statesmen  of  the  world.  Events 
have  proven  that  he  was  sound  on  every 
great  public  question  which  he  investi- 
gated and  upon  which  he  expressed 
opinions. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  during  his  whole 
public  career,  was  a  member  of  political 
parties  which  favored  as  one  of  their 
chief  political  doctrines  the  policy  of 
"Protection  to  home  industries."  He 
joined  the  Whig  party  w^hen  it  was 
formed,  and  remained  a  staunch  sup- 
porter of  its  principles  until  the  North- 
ern wing  of  that  party  united  with  the 
Jackson  or  Free  Soil  Democrats  and 
formed  the  Republican   party  in   1854. 

First    Speech    on    the   Tariff. 

An  account  of  Lincoln's  first  political 
speech  is  given  by  W^illiam  H.  Herndon 
(who  had  been  his  law  partner)  in  his 
"Life  of  Abraham  Lincoln,"  published 
by  D.  Appleton  &  Co.,  pages   94  and  95. 

Late  in  the  political  campaign  of  1832 
Lincoln  returned  from  the  Black  Hawk 
War,  in  which  he  had  served  as  captain 
of  a  company,  and  announced  himself  as 
a  candidate  for  the  legislature.  Mr. 
Herndon  says: 

"His  maiden  effort  on  the  stump  was  a 
speech  on  the  occasion  of  a  public  sale 
at  Pappsville,  a  village  eleven  miles 
west  of  Springfield.     Lincoln  said: 

"'Fellow  Citizens:  I  presume  you  all 
know  who  I  am.  I  am  the  humble  Abra- 
ham Lincoln.  I  have  been  solicited  by 
many  friends  to  become  a  candidate  for 
the  legislature.  My  politics  are  short 
and  sweet,  like  the  old  woman's  dance. 
I  am  in  favor  of  a  National  Bank;  I  am 
in  favor  of  the  internal  improvement 
system  and  a  high  Protective  Tariff. 
These  are  my  sentiments  and  political 
principles.  If  elected  I  shall  be  thank- 
ful; if  not  it  will  be  all  the  same.'" 

Lincoln  was  noted  for  saying  a  great 
deal  in  a  very  few  words.  This  faculty, 
which  he  possessed  in  such  a  high  de- 
gree, was  never  better  employed  than 
when  in  this  first  speech  he  said:    "I  am 


in  favor  of  (1)  a  National  Bank;  (2)  the 
internal  improvement  system,  and  (3) 
a  hig-h  Protective  Tariff."  These  were 
the  three  great  questions  at  that  time 
in  controversy  between  the  people  of  the 
slave-holding  and  free  States  and  around 
which  centered  the  great  debates  in  the 
halls  of  Congress.  In  a  letter  written 
to  Dr.  Wallace  in  1859,  he  said: 

"I  was  an  old  Henry  Clay  Tariff  Whig. 
In  old  times  I  made  more  speeches  on 
that  subject  than  any  other.  I  have  not 
since  changed  my  views." 

TVhat  Is  a  Higrh  Protective  Tariff? 

It  is  significant  and  shows  his  power 
of  discrimination  and  the  precision  with 
which  he  spoke  when  he  used  the  word 
"high"  in  defining  the  kind  of  a  Tariff 
which  he  favored,  for  at  this  time  the 
enemies  of  American  industries  were  de- 
manding a  low  Tariff,  or  one  imposed  for 
"revenue  only,"  while  the  friends  of 
American  industries  favored  rates  of 
duties  high  enough  to  Protect  our  man- 
ufacturers, producers  and  laborers  from 
the  ruinous  competition  in  our  home 
market  of  the  products  of  the  poorly- 
paid  labor  of  the  Old  World.  To  the 
importer  any  rate  of  duty  which  re- 
stricted the  sale  of  foreign-made  goods 
in  th6  American  market  was  too  high. 
It  was  to  him  a  high  Tariff.  This  was 
equally  true  to  the  slaveholder  and  those 
who  favored  a  Tariff  for  revenue  only, 
or  Free-Trade. 

The  low  Tariff  advocates  favored 
Free-Trade,  or  the  unrestricted  purchase 
of  foreign-made  goods,  instead  of  pat- 
ronizing home  industries.  Lincoln  was 
not  only  in  favor  of  a  "high"  Tariff,  but 
a  high  Protective  Tariff;  that  is,  a  Tar- 
iff of  duties  high  enough  to  secure 
to  American  manufacturers,  producers, 
agriculturalists  and  laborers  the  entire 
home  market,  in  order  that  our  indus- 
tries might  thrive,  labor  be  fully  em- 
ployed, the  native  resources  and  water 
powers  be  utilized,  ard  the  independence 
and  prosperity  of  the  people  be  made 
secure. 

A  Henry   Clay   Tariff  WTiig. 

His  statement  in  his  letter  to  Dr. 
Wallace,  in  1859,  that  he  was  "an  old 
Henry  Clay  Tariff  Whig"  contains  a  vol- 
ume of  meaning.  It  covers  the  whole 
ground,  for  Henry  Clay  was  the  great- 
est advocate  of  sound  Protectionist  doc- 
trines since  Alexander  Hamilton.  He 
was  the  leader  of  that  body  of  statesmen 
who  gave  effect  to  the  great  principles 
expounded  by  Hamilton  in  the  high  Pro- 
tective Tariff  laws  of  1824,  1828  and  1832. 
It  was  Henry  Clay  who  in  one  of  his 
great  speeches  gave  to  the  Protective 
Tariff  policy  as  advocated  by  Washing- 
ton, Adams,  Jefferson,  Madison,  Monroe, 
John  Quincy  Adams  and  Andrew  Jack- 
son, our  first  eight  Presidents,  the  name 
"American  System."  So  when  Lincoln 
said  he  was  "an  old  Henry  Clay  Tariff 
Whig"    it    meant    that    he    favored    that 


form  of  Protection  taught  by  Hamilton, 
Matthew  Carey,  Henry  Clay  and  the 
great  expounders  of  sound  Protection- 
ism. 

Henry  Clay's  Tariff  Prittclples. 

The  practical  operation  of  the  Protec- 
tive system  as  laid  down  by  Hamilton 
and  expounded  and  defended  by  Henry 
Clay  in  his  great  speeches,  and  what 
would  result  from  it,  were  defined  as 
follows: 

First.  That  Protection  was  necessary 
in  order  to  establish  a  system  of  manu- 
facturing. 

Second.  That  by  establishing  a  system 
of  manufacturing,  these  results  would 
follow: 

I.  Diversification   of  industries. 

II.  iDivision  of  labor. 

III.  The  producer  and  consumer  would 
be  brought  together,  saving  to  the  con- 
sumer expense  of  transportation,  com- 
mission, etc. 

IV.  It  would  encourage  home  trade. 

V.  It  would  build  up  a  home  market. 

VI.  Encourage  the  immigration  of 
skilled  artisans,  manufacturers  and  agri- 
culturists. 

VII.  Invite  the  investment  of  foreign 
and  domestic  capital  in  the  establish- 
ment of  domestic  industries. 

VIII.  Give  employment  to  labor  at 
higher  wages  than  are  paid  in  the  Old 
World. 

IX.  Stimulate  the  inventive  genius  of 
the  people. 

X.  Stimulate  the  industry  of  the 
people. 

XI.  Insure  to  industry  the  rewards  of 
its  labor. 

XII.  It  would  develop  the  resources  of 
the  country. 

XIII.  It  would  secure  to  the  agricul- 
turist at  home  the  most  reliable  and 
largest  possible  market  for  the  greatest 
variety  of  the  produce  of  the  farm  and 
garden. 

Third.  That  it  shields  the  consumers 
of  the  country  from  foreign  monopoly, 
and  the  competition  between  native  and 
foreign  manufacturers  tends  to  reduce 
the  price  of  commodities  to  the  level  of 
fair  profits  based  on  the  cost  of  pro- 
duction, under  conditions  existing  at 
home. 

Fourth.  That  it  increases  foreign 
trade  by  stimulating  the  production  of 
a  greater  variety  of  domestic  articles 
for -export,  and  so  adds  to  the  wealth, 
spendable  income  and  purchasing  power 
of  the  people  that  the  importation  of 
non-competing  articles  and  luxuries  will 
be  greatly  augmented. 

Fifth.  That  il  tends  to  secure  a  favor- 
able balance  of  trade  and  prevents  a 
drain  of  the  precious  metals. 

Sixth.  That  it  makes  the  nation  inde- 
pendent of  other  nations  in  time  of  war. 

Seventh.  That  it  makes  possible  the 
accumulation  of  capital  which  is  neces- 
sary to  the  establishment  of  sound 
banks,    and    the    growth    of   agriculture, 


manufacturing-,  mining,  Kliipping-,  means 
of  transportation,  and  everything  upon 
which  the  material  well-being-  of  the 
people  depends. 

W'liat  Lincoln  Meant. 

It  is  by  becoming  familiar  with  the 
foregoing-  history  and  the  principles  of 
the  Protective  system  that  we  are  able 
to  understand  what  Lincoln  meant  when 
he   said,   in   1832: 

"I  am  in  favor  of  *  *  *  a  high 
Protective  Tariff."  And  what  he  meant, 
in   1859,   when  he   said: 

"I  was  an  old  Henry  Clay  Tariff  Whig. 
I  have   not  since   changed   my   views." 

It  was  during  the  great  debates  on 
the  Tariff  question  between  1819  and 
the  close  of  the  session  of  1832  that 
Henry  Clay  distinguished  himself  above 
all  other  statesmen  of  that  time  as  an 
advocate  of  Protection,  It  was  Henry 
Clay  that  perfected  and  reduced  to  prac- 
tical form  the  principles  of  Protection 
•enunciated  by  Alexander  Hamilton  in 
his  g-reat  Tleport  on  Manufactures.  It 
was  flenry  Clay  who  g-ave  to  Protection 
the  name  "American  System,"  and  who, 
in  his  great  speech  on  March  30  and  31, 
1824,   said: 

"The  best  security  against  the  demor- 
alizati  «n  of  society  is  the  constant  and 
profitable  employm^ent  of  its  members. 
The  greatest  danger  to  public  liberty  is 
from  idleness  and  vice." 

In  the  same  speech  he  also  said: 

"The  greatest  want  of  civilized  society 
is  a  market  for  the  exchange  and  sale 
of  its  surplus  produce.  This  market 
may  exist  at  home  or  abroad,  but  it  must 
exist  somewhere  if  society  prospers.  The 
home  market  is  the  first  in  order  and 
paramount  in  importance.  The  object 
of  the  bill  under  consideration  is  to  cre- 
ate this  market  and  to  lay  the  founda- 
tion of  a  genuine  American  policy," 

Henry   Clay's  Plan   of  Imposing;  Duties. 

Prior  to  1832  no  distinction  was  made 
between  non-competing  commodities, 
luxuries  and  competing  manufactures. 
All  were  subjected  to  the  payment  of  im- 
port duties;  some,  distinctly  for  the  pur- 
pose of  raising  revenue;  others,  both  for 
revenue  and  Protection.  In  1832  we  had 
reached  a  point  where  the  national  debt 
was  extinguished,  and  a  large  surplus 
of  revenue  was  in  the  treasury.  This 
condition  made  a  revision  of  the  Tariff 
necessary.  It  was  at  this  time  that  the 
Tariff  question  for  the  first  time  in  our 
history  became  a  party  question.  It  was 
at  this  time  that  the  South  declared  in 
favor  of  Free-Trade.  It  was  at  this  time 
that  the  slavery  controversy  plunged  the 
country  into  sectional  politics  and  en- 
dangered   the    life    of    the    nation. 

The  chief  leaders  of  the  Free-Trade 
party  were  George  MacDuffle  of  South 
Carolina  in  the  House,  and  Robert  Y. 
Hayne,  of  the  same  State,  in  the  Sen- 
ate; and  of  the  Protectionist  forces,  John 
Quincy  Adams  in  the  House,  and  Henry 


Clay  in  the  Senate.  Henry  Clay  pre- 
sented a  resolution  setting  forth  the 
system  of  levying  duties  in  accordance 
with  the  Protective  system,  which  provid- 
ed that  (1)  non-competing  commodities 
of  foreign  production,  the  like  of  which 
cannot  be  produced  in  the  United  States, 
such  as  tea,  coffee,  etc.,  should  be  admit- 
ted into  the  United  States  free  of  duty; 
(2)  that  certain  articles  of  luxury,  al- 
though produced  abroad,  such  as  dia- 
monds, fine  jewelry,  wines,  liquors, 
should  be  subject  to  the  payment  of 
duties  for  revenue  purposes;  (3)  that 
duties  for  the  purpose  of  securing  their 
production  at  home  be  imposed  on  all 
competing  articles,  or  those  articles  the 
like  of  which  might  be  produced  in  the 
United  States.  Under  this  system  rev- 
enues were  to  be  reduced  by  repealing 
the  duties  on  non-competing  articles. 
The  system  of  Protection  was  to  be  pre- 
served in  all  its  integrity.  This  plan  was 
embodied  in  the  Protective  law  of  1832. 
It  met  the  violent  opposition  of  the 
planters  and  importers.  The  former  saw 
at  once  that  it  meant  the  continuation 
of  a  public  policy  which  would  make  the 
free  States  prosperous,  rich  and  power- 
ful, and  the  latter  that  the  importation 
into  the  United  States  of  competing 
manufactures  would  be  diminished  as 
domestic  industries  were  established 
and  extended,  and  in  this  respect  that 
branch  of  foreign  commerce  would  be 
injured  and  they  would  lose  profits. 

The  Free-Trade  Plan  of  Imposing  Duties. 

The  Free-Trade  plan  of  levying  duties 
in  the  revision  of  the  tariff  was  set 
forth  in  a  counter-proposition  presented 
by  George  MacDuffie,  which  provided  for 
the  levying  of  duties  on  substantially 
all  articles,  competing  as  well  as  non- 
competing,  at  a  uniform  rate  of  12% 
per  cent,  ad  valorem.  The  duties  were 
intended  to  be  so  low  that  the  manu- 
factures already  established  in  the  free 
States  would  be  destroyed  and  the  coun- 
try would  enter  upon  a  policy  of  free  in- 
ternational trade,  the  idea  being  that 
our  cotton,  tobacco  and  all  raw  mate- 
rials would  be  sent  to  England,  and  as 
it  was  called,  exchanged  there  for  manu- 
factures; it  being  contended  that  the 
American  people  should  be  permitted  to 
buy  their  manufactures  where  they 
could  buy  the  cheapest,  and  it  being 
conceded  that  wages  were  low  in  the  Old 
"World,  and  that  England  had  erected  an 
enormous  manufacturing  system  by  in- 
dustrial organization,  the  use  of  ma- 
chinery and  skilled  artisans,  and  having 
the  ships  to  transport  them  to  market, 
could  under  Democratic  revenue  duties 
flood  the  American  market  with  their 
wares,  force  into  bankruptcy  every  in- 
dustry which  had  been  established,  and 
through  the  power  of  competition  for- 
ever prevent  the  Establishment  of  a 
system  of  manufactures  on  American 
soil. 


Orlgrln  and  Meaning;  of  the  Trord  "Only.'* 

The  South  also  took  the  position  that 
Congress  had  no  power  under  the  Con- 
stitution to  levy  duties  for  the  purpose 
of  fostering-  and  encouraging  the  estab- 
lishment of  our  industries.  The  import- 
ing and  shipping-  interests  of  the  North- 
ern States  and  many  persons  in  other 
occupations  composing  the  Northern 
wing  of  the  Democratic  party,  while 
being  in  favor  of  Free-Trade,  did  not 
fully  concur  with  the  representatives 
of  the  planting  States  on  the  Constitu- 
tional question.  This  subject  was 
brought  before  the  Free-Trade  conven- 
tion held  in  Philadelphia  in  1831,  which 
by  resolution  declared  that  "they  admit 
the  power  of  Congress  to  levy  and  col- 
lect such  duties  as  they  may  deem  nec- 
essary for  the  purpose  of  revenue,  and 
within  those  limits  to  arrange  those 
duties  so  as  to  'incidentally  and  to  that 
extent  give  Protection  to  the  manufac- 
turers.' " 

This  principle  Judge  Job  Johnson,  of 
South  Carolina,  representing  the  South- 
ern delegation,  declared  "was  to  give 
away  the  whole  case,  fatal  to  the  cause 
of  Free-Trade  and  fatal  to  the  consti- 
tutional argument." 

The  proposition  that  the  Constitution 
would  permit  revenue  duties  which  "in- 
cidentally" or,  as  an  incident  thereto, 
might  afford  a  small  degree  of  Protec- 
tion, was  rejected  by  the  new  Demo- 
cratic party,  and  to  express  such  dis- 
sent, the  term  "Tariff  for  revenue  only" 
was  adopted.  Thus  by  the  use  of  the 
word  "only"  every  vestige  of  Protection 
was  excluded.  This  was  the  origin  of 
the  expression  "A  Tariff  for  revenue 
only." 

DiflFerence      Bet-ween     Protective     Duties 
and    Duties    for    Revenue. 

Mr.  Calhoun,  in  a  speech  before  the 
Senate  in  1842,  gave  a  clear  and  definite 
interpretation  of  "a  Tariff  for  revenue 
only"  policy.     He   said: 

"No  two  things,  Senator,  are  more 
different  than  the  duties  for  revenue  and 
Protection.  They  are  as  opposite  as  light 
and  darkness.  The  one  is  friendly  and 
the  other  hostile  to  the  importation  of 
the  articles  on  which  they  may  be  im- 
posed. Revenue  seeks  not  to  exclude 
or  diminish  the  amount  imported.  On 
the  contrary,  if  it  should  be  the  result, 
it  neither  designed  nor  desired  it.  While 
it  takes,  it  patronizes;  and  patronizes 
that  it  may  take  more.  It  is  the  reverse 
in  every  respect  with  Protection — it 
seeks,  directly,  exclusion  or  diminution. 
It  is  the  desired  result,  and  if  it  fails  in 
it  then   it  fails   in   its  object." 

A  Tariff  for  revenue  only,  then,  seeks 
to  accomplish  two  essential  purposes: 
First,  to  raise  revenue  on  duties  from 
imports  for  the  support  of  the  Govern- 
ment; second,  to  fix  the  duties  at  such 
a  low  rate  that  Protection  is  made  im- 
possible. 

The    South    was    supported    in    its    op- 


position to  the  Protective  system  by  the 
importers  of  our  great  seaboard  cities, 
many  of  whom  were  agents  of  foreign 
manufacturers,  and  all  attempting  to 
prevent  the  establishment  of  domestic 
manufactures  in  order  that  they  might 
make  profits  by  selling  to  the  Amer- 
ican people  foreign  made  goods.  The 
shipping  interests  of  New  England  and 
the  East,  although  favored  until  about 
1828  with  Protection  to  their  business, 
also  opposed  the  building  up  of  our  na- 
tive industries  upon  the  theory  that 
by  so  much  as  our  domestic  raw  mate- 
rials were  produced,  and  manufactures 
were  made  in  our  domestic  mills  for  the 
supply  of  our  home  market,  the  imports 
of  similar  commodities  brought  from 
abroad  would  be  diminished  and  domes- 
tic materials  would  be  worked  up  at 
home  instead  of  being  exported,  and 
they  would  suffer  a  great  loss  in  the 
ocean  carrying  trade.  It  was  from  the 
belief  that  as  home  trade  in  domestic 
commodities  increased,  foreign  com- 
merce in  competing  articles  would  be 
diminished,  that  the  importers  and  the 
ship  owner  cried  out,  "Protection  in- 
jures our  foreign  commerce."  Many  per- 
sons engaged  in  trade,  professions  and 
occupations  not  directly  affected  by  the 
Tariff  were  also  led  to  believe  that  un- 
der a  system  of  Free-Trade  it  would  be 
to  their  advantage  to  buy  manufactured 
articles  made  abroad,  and  the  farmer  of 
the  non-manufacturing  sections  of  the 
Western  States  was  advised  that  he 
could  save  money  by  buying  from  the 
foreign  manufacturers  rather  than  from 
the  American.  So  a  formidable  party  In 
favor  of  Free-Trade,  composed  of  the 
elements  mentioned  in  the  North,  unit- 
ing with  the  slaveholding  interests,  was 
organized  by  the  Democratic  party 
which  waged  an  incessant  and  aggres- 
sive political  warfare  against  the  estab- 
lishment and  extension  of  American  in- 
dustries. 

Nullification    and   Secession. 

South  Carolina  led  the  way  in  1832  by 
passing  an  ordinance  declaring  null  and 
void  the  Protective  Tariff  law  of  1832, 
and  threatened  to  secede  from  the  Union 
in  case  President  Jackson  attempted  to 
enforce  the  collection  of  duties  at  the 
port  of  Charleston.  This  was  the  first 
overt  act  threatening  the  life  of  the  na- 
tion by  the  slaveholding  interests.  Be- 
fore General  Jackson  had  entered  upon 
the  first  year  of  his  second  term,  as 
President,  he  was  confronted  with  a 
most  alarming  condition  of  affairs.  Civil 
war  and  the  dissolution  of  the  Union 
was  threatened.  The  Tariff  of  1832  was 
made  the  pretext  for  this  threatened  re- 
volt. The  people  of  the  free  States  were 
compelled  to  choose  between  two  alter- 
natives, a  coercion  of  the  State  of  South 
Carolina  by  military  force,  or  the  aban- 
donment of  the  Protective  system. 
The    Compromise   of   1833. 

So  many  congressmen  throughout  the 


North  were  in  favor  of  yielding  this 
point  to  the  South,  temporarily  at  least, 
that  the  Compromise  act  of  1833  was  en- 
acted, under  which  the  duties  of  the  ex- 
isting- law  were  to  be  reduced,  was 
passed,  providing  for  a  reduction  of 
duties  on  a  sliding  scale;  10  per  cent,  of 
the  excess  of  duties  above  20  per  cent, 
was  to  be  taken  off  every  two  years,  un- 
til finally  in  1842  a  system  of  uniform  ad 
valorem  duties  of  20  per  cent,  was  to  be 
established. 

The    rfew    Democratic    Party. 

The  new  Democratic  party  was  organ- 
ized, and  nominated  Martin  VanBuren 
for  President,  and  presented  its  first 
declaration  of  party  principles  in  reso- 
lutions adopted  by  its  National  Conven- 
tion in  1836.  It  declared  that  Congress 
had  no  power  under  the  Constitution  to 
grant  a  charter  for  a  National  Bank, 
to  appropriate  money  for  the  improve- 
ment of  highways  and  other  public  im- 
provements, or  to  impose  duties  on  im- 
ports to  foster  and  Protect  home  indus- 
tries. This  was  its  business  creed.  It 
also  favored  the  Protection  and  exten- 
sion of  slavery,  State  sovereignty,  and 
the  right  of  secession.  From  this  time 
until  1861  it  controlled  the  United  States 
Senate,  and  failed  in  the  election  of  a 
President  only  twice,  1840  and  1848.  To 
make  the  control  of  the  slave  States 
supreme  over  the  party,  it  in  1836  adopt- 
ed the  two-thirds  rule  in  its  Presidential 
nominations.  Its  party  control  then  be- 
came a  mere  matter  of  political  bargain 
and  sale.  Martin  VanBuren's  famous 
maxim,  "Carry  the  South  by  going  with 
the  South,  and  the  North  by  party  ma- 
chinery," became  the  keynote  of  Democ- 
racy. 

When    Cotton    Was    King. 

The  most  authoritative  account  of  the 
causes  which  induced  the  people  of  the 
slave  States  to  oppose  the  policy  of  Pro- 
tection" and  favor  the  doctrine  of  Free- 
Trade  is  found  in  a  work  entitled  "Cot- 
ton Is  King"  and  "Pro-slavery  Argu- 
ments," edited  by  E.  N.  Elliott,  LL.D., 
President  of  the  Planter's  College  of 
Mississippi,  published  in  Atlanta,  Ga.,  by 
Pritchard,  Abbott  &  Loomis,  in  1860.  The 
part  from  which  the  following  quota- 
tions are  taken  was  written  by  David 
Christie,  Esq.,  and  published  under  the 
title  of  "Cotton  Is  King,  or  Slavery  in 
the  Light  of  Political  Economy."  From 
the  following  extracts  we  have  the  en- 
tire   scheme    unfolded: 

"The  logical  conclusion,  from  these 
different  results,  was  that  the  less  pro- 
visions and  the  more  cotton  grown  by 
the  planter,  the  greater  would  be  his 
profits.  This  must  be  noted  with  special 
care.  Markets  for  the  surplus  products 
of  the  farmer  of  the  North  were  equally 
as  important  to  him  as  the  supply  of 
provisions  was  to  the  planter.  But  the 
planter,  to  be  eminently  successful,  must 
purchase  his  supplies  at  the  lowest  pos- 


sible prices;  while  the  farmer,  to  secure 
his  prosperity,  must  sell  his  products  at 
the  highest  possible  rates.  Few,  indeed, 
can  be  so  ill-informed  as  not  to  know 
that  these  two  topics  for  many  years 
were  involved  in  the  "Free-Trade"  and 
"Protective  TarifC"  doctrines,  and  af- 
forded the  material  of  the  political  con- 
tests between  the  North  and  the  South — 
between  free  labor  and  slave  labor.  A 
very  brief  notice  of  the  history  of  that 
controversy  will  demonstrate  the  truth 
of    this    assertion. 

"A  manufacturing  population,  with  its 
mechanical  coadjutors  in  the  midst  of 
the  provision-growers,  on  a  scale  such 
as  the  Protective  policy  contemplated, 
it  was  conceived,  would  create  a  perma- 
nent market  for  their  products,  and  en- 
hance the  price;  whereas,  if  this  manu- 
facturing could  be  prevented,  and  a  sys- 
tem of  Free-Trade  adopted,  the  South 
would  constitute  the  principal  provision 
market  of  the  country,  and  the  fertile 
lands  of  the  North  supply  the  cheap  food 

demanded   for   its   slaves 

For  success  in  the  foreign  markets  they 
relied,  mainly,  upon  preparing  them- 
selves to  produce  cotton  at  the  reduced 
prices  then  prevailing  in  Europe.  All 
agricultural  products,  except  cotton, 
being  excluded  from  foreign  markets,  the 
planters  found  themselves  almost  the 
sole  exporters  of  the  country;  and  it  was 
to  them  a  source  of  chagrin  that  the 
North  did  not,  at  once,  co-operate  with 
them  in  augmenting  the  commerce  of  the 
nation. 

"At  this  point  in  the  history  of  the 
controversy  politicians  found  it  an  easy 
matter  to  produce  feeling  of  the  deepest 
hostility  between  the  opposing  parties. 
The  planters  were  led  to  believe  that  the 
millions  of  revenue  collected  off  the 
goods  imported  was  so  much  deducted 
from  the  value  of  the  cotton  that  paid 
for  them,  either  in  the  diminished  price 
they  received  abroad,  or  in  the  increased 
price  which  they  paid  for  the  imported 
articles.  To  enhance  the  duties,  for  the 
Protection  of  our  manufacturers,  they 
were  persuaded  would  be  so  much  of  an 
additional  tax  upon  themselves,  for  the 
benefit  of  the  North;  and,  besides,  to 
give  the  manufacturer  such  a  monopoly 
of  the  home  market  for  his  fabrics  would 
enable  him  to  charge  purchasers  an  ex- 
cess over  the  true  value  of  his  stuffs,  to 
the  whole  amount  of  the  duty.  By  the 
Protective  policy,  the  planters  expected 
to  have  the  cost  of  both  provisions  and 
clothing  increased,  and  their  ability  to 
monopolize  the  foreign  markets  dimin- 
ished in  a  corresponding  degree.  If  they 
could  establish  Free-Trade,  it  would  in- 
sure the  American  market  to  foreign 
manufacturers;  secure  the  foreign  mar- 
kets for  their  leading  staple;  repress 
home  manufactures;  force  a  large  num- 
ber of  the  Northern  men  into  agricul- 
ture; multiply  the  growth  and  diminish 
the  price  of  provisions;  feed  and  clothe 
their  slaves  at  lower  rates;  produce  their 


cotton  for  a  third  or  fourth  of  former 
prices;  rival  all  other  countries  in  its 
cultivation;  monopolize  the  trade  in  the 
article  throughout  the  whole  of  Europe, 
and  build  up  a  commerce  and  navy  that 
would  make    us   ruler  of  the   seas. 

"Out  of  this  conviction  grew  the  war 
upon  corporations;  the  hostility  to  the 
employment  of  foreign  capital  in  devel- 
oping- the  mineral,  agricultural  and 
manufacturing  resources  of  the  country; 
the  efforts  to  destroy  the  banks  and 
the  credit  system;  the  attempts  to  reduce 
the  currency  to  gold  and  silver;  the  sys- 
tem of  collecting  the  public  revenues  in  ^ 
coin;  the  withdrawal  of  the  public 
moneys  from  all  the  banks  as  a  basis 
of  paper  circulation;  and  the  sleepless 
vigilance  of  the  South  in  resisting  all 
systems  of  internal  improvements  by  the 
general  government.  Its  statesmen  fore- 
saw that  a  paper  currency  would  keep 
up  the  price  of  Northern  products  one  or 
two  hundred  per  cent,  above  the  specie 
standard;  that  combinations  of  capital- 
ists, whether  engaged  in  manufacturing- 
wool,  cotton,  or  iron,  would  draw  off 
labor  from  the  cultivation  of  the  soil, 
and  cause  large  bodies  of  the  producers 
to  become  consumers;  and  that  roads  and 
canals,  connecting-  the  West  with  the 
East,  were  effectual  means  of  bringing 
the  agricultural  and  manufacturing- 
classes  into  closer  proximity,  to  the  seri- 
ous limitation  of  the  foreign  commerce 
of  the  country,  the  checking-  of  the 
growth  of  the  navy,  and  the  manifest  in- 
jury of  planters. 

Besides  this,  the  abolition  movement 
at  that  moment,  1832,  had  assumed  its 
most  threatening  aspect,  and  was  de- 
manding- the  destruction  of  slavery  or 
the  dissolution  of  the  Union.  Here  was 
a  double  motive  operating  to  produce 
harmony  in  the  ranks  of  Southern  poli- 
ticians, and  to  awaken  the  fears  of  many. 
North  and  South,  for  the  safety  of  the 
government.  Here,  also,  was  the  origin 
of  the  determination,  in  the  South,"  to  ex- 
tend slavery  by  the  annexation  of  terri- 
tory, so  as  to  gain  the  political  prepon- 
derance in  the  national  councils,  and  to 
protect  its  interests  against  the  inter- 
ference of  the  North." 

They  Agreed  as   to  Effects  and  Results. 

An  analysis  of  the  debates  on  the  sub- 
ject shows  that  there  was  perfect  agree- 
ment between  the  Protectionists  of  the 
North  and  the  Free-Traders  of  the  South 
on  the  question  of  the  necessary  influ- 
ence of  the  policy  of  Protection  in 
building  up  the  industries  of  the  nation. 
It  was  conceded  by  the  Free-Traders 
that  through  Protection  manufactures 
would  be  established;  skilled  manufac- 
turers and  artisans  would  come  from  the 
Old  World  and  establish  themselves  in 
America;  that  immigration  would  bo 
stimulated  to  people  the  free  States;  that 
capital  would  flow  in  from  abroad  and 
new  capital  would  be  created  at  home; 
that  villages,  cities  and  great  industrial 


centers  would  spring-  up  everywhere; 
that  industries  would  follow  the  settlers 
into  the  new  States;  that  the  whole 
North  would  become  a  scene  of  thrift, 
industry  and  prosperity. 

The  opposition  to  Protection  by 
the  planters  was  based  on  the  belief  that 
the  free  States  under  its  influence  would 
soon  become  so  populous,  so  strong  and 
powerful  that  they  would  outvote  the 
slave  States  in  the  halls  of  Congress, 
and  the  political  equilibrium  between  the 
two  sections  of  the  country  would  be 
destroyed.  It  was  to  prevent  the  hap- 
pening of  such  events  that  the  planters 
attempted  to  keep  the  North  poor  and 
backward  by  preventing  the  establish- 
ment of  a  system  of  manufactures.  So 
when  we  come  to  consider  the  objections 
which  they  interposed  against  the  Amer- 
ican system,  instead  of  finding-  any  rea- 
son for  the  support  of  Free-Trade  or  a 
low  Tariff  policy  based  on  national  wel- 
fare, the  very  reverse  appears,  and  their 
contentions  vindicate  the  wisdom  and 
justice  of  the  Protective  system. 

Lincoln's  Political  Principles. 

Lincoln  was  opposed  to  each  one  of 
the  Democratic  doctrines.  He  favored  a 
National  Bank;  the  system  of  internal 
improvements;  a  Protective  Tariff;  thei 
sovereignty  of  the  people  under  the  per- 
petual union  of  the  States,  and  the 
powers  of  Congress  under  the  Constitu- 
tion as  expounded  by  Daniel  Webster. 
He  could  not  favor  a  National  Bank,  nor 
the  system  of  internal  improvements,  nor 
the  non-extension  and  abolition  of  slav- 
ery, without  being-  a  Protectionist. 

Failure   of  Free-Trade.      The  Panic    183T 
to    1842. 

The  Compromise  act  was  adopted  when 
the  industries  of  the  North  were  in  a 
flourishing-  condition  and  the  people  were 
enjoying  a  high  state  of  prosperity.  A 
repetition  of  their  experience  under  the 
low  Tariff  of  1816  came  upon  them  as 
Protection  g-radually  disappeared  under 
the  sliding-  scale  of  reductions.  First, 
the  country  was  visited  with  a  severe 
financial  panic,  followed  by  a  period  of 
business  and  industrial  depression,  con- 
tinuin;?-  from  about  1838  to  the  restora- 
tion of  Protection  under  the  Tariff  act 
of  1842.  The  four  years  between  1838 
and  1842  were  perhaps  more  disastrous 
than  the  four  years  immediately  pre- 
ceding- the  enactment  of  the  act  of  1824. 
The  country  was  flooded  with  foreign 
made  goods;  factories  were  closed;  many 
went  into  bankruptcy;  labor  w^as  idle; 
no  sale  for  commodities  of  any  kind  at 
remunerative  prices;  the  balance  of  trade 
turned  against  us;  revenues  were  insuffi- 
cient; the  public  treasury  was  bank- 
rupt and  the  credit  of  the  nation  ruined. 

These  conditions  brought  about  a  re- 
volt against  VanBuren's  administration 
and  the  election  of  Harrison  and  Tyler 
in  1840.  Harrison,  a  Northern  man, 
standing      for      Whig-      principles,      died 


shortly  after  he  was  inaug-urated,  and 
Tyler,  a  Virginian,  believing-  in  the 
political  doctrines  of  the  slaveholders, 
became  President,  and  after  interposing 
his  veto  against  several  Tariff  bills,  he 
was  finally  compelled,  on  account  of  the 
state  of  the  Treasury,  to  sign  the  highly 
Protective   act   of    1842. 

Protection  Overthrown.  The  Act  of  184G. 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  indus- 
tries revived  and  prosperity  came  back 
as  by  magic,  the  warfare  against  the 
Protective  system  was  still  continued  by 
the  (Democratic  party.  In  1843  they  were 
struggling  to  repeal  the  act  of  1842;  in 
184 4  Henry  Clay  was  beaten  on  the  Tariff 
issue,  and  James  K.  Polk,  a  Free-Trader, 
was  elected  President,  and  upon  his  in- 
auguration the  Walker  Tariff  law  of 
1846,  completely  overthrowing  the  Pro- 
tective system,  was  enacted.  At  this 
time  the  South  accomplished  the  annexa- 
tion of  Texas;  declared  war  on  Mexico, 
and  added  the  territories  of  California, 
New  Mexico,  and  Arizona  to  our  public 
domain.  Growing  out  of  the  annexation 
of  Texas  and  the  acquisition  of  those 
new  territories,  the  controversy  over 
slavery  was  renewed,  divided  and  dis- 
rupted old  political  parties  and  grew  in 
intensity  and  violence  until  the  secession 
of  the  Southern  States  in  1861,  the  South 
struggling  to  perpetuate  and  extend 
slavery  in  all  of  its  territories,  and  those 
in  favor  of  freedom  struggling  to  pre- 
vent its  further  extension,  and  finally 
to   bring   about    its    total    extinction. 

The  Tariff  an  Issue  from  1840  to  1846. 

Abraham  Lincoln  entered  public  life  at 
a  time  when  the  Tariff  question  at- 
tracted perhaps  more  attention  and  was 
more  widely  and  thoroughly  discussed 
in  Congress  and  out,  than  during  any 
similar  period  of  our  history.  The  de- 
bates in  Congress  on  the  subject,  from 
1824  to  1832,  were  participated  in  by  the 
greatest  statesmen  of  the  times,  and  dur- 
ing no  period  of  our  congressional  his- 
tory is  there  to  be  found  in  its  records 
debates  on  the  subject  conducted  with 
greater  talent,  learning  and  ability  than 
during  these  years.  While  there  was  a 
lull  in  the  controversy  following  the 
Compromise  act  of  1833,  the  disastrous 
consequences  which  resulted  from  it  re- 
vived a  discussion  of  the  question,  and 
from  1838  to  the  enactment  of  the  Walk- 
er Tariff  act  of  1846,  it  was  discussed  by 
the  people  in  every  neighborhood,  com- 
munity, town,  county  and  state  of  the 
Union.  It  was  during  this  time  and  un- 
der these  conditions  that  Abraham  Lin- 
coln announced  himself  in  favor  of  a 
high  Protective  Tariff,  ancl  said  that  he 
was  a  Henry  Clay  Tariff  Whig,  and  made 
more  speeches  on  the  Tariff  question 
than  any  other. 

Very  little  was  written  by  Lincoln  on 
the  Tariff.  Although  he  made  many 
speeches  on  the  subject,  yet  they  do  not 
appear    to    have    been    published.      His 


first  speech  announcing  his  position, 
heretofore  quoted,  is  given  by  his  law 
partner,  Mr,  Herndon.  His  next  published 
statement  is  found  in  a  circular  issued 
by  a  Committee  of  the  Whig  Party  for 
the  State  of  Illinois,  dated  March  4,  1843, 
addressed  to  the  people  of  that  'State. 
It  is  signed  by  Abraham  Lincoln,  S.  T. 
Logan  and  A,  T.  Bledsoe,  and  was  writ- 
ten by  Lincoln,  published  in  "Complete 
Works  of  Abraham  Lincoln,"  edited  by 
John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  (edition 
de  Luxe),  published  by  Francis  D,  Tandy 
Co.,  New  York,  Vol.  1,  pages  243-247,  as 
follows: 

Protective  Circular  "Written  by   Lincoln. 

"Circular  from  Whig  Committee,  March 
4,  1843.     Address  to  the  People  of  Illinois. 

"Fellow-Citizens:  By  a  resolution  of 
a  meeting  of  such  of  the  Whigs  of  the 
State  as  are  now  at  Springfield,  we,  the 
undersigned,  were  appointed  to  prepare 
an  address  to  you.  The  performance  of 
that   task   we   now   undertake. 

"Several  resolutions  were  adopted  by 
the  meeting;  and  the  chief  object  of  thin 
address  is  to  show  briefly  the  reasons  for 
their  adoption. 

"The  first  of  those  resolutions  declares 
a  Tariff  of  duties  upon  foreign  importa- 
tions, producing  sufficient  revenue  for 
the  support  of  the  General  Government, 
and  so  adjusted  as  to  Protect  American 
industry,  to  be  indispensably  necessary 
to  the  prosperity  of  the  American  peo- 
ple and  the  second  declares  direct  taxa- 
tion for  a  national  revenue  to  be  im- 
proper. Those  two  resolutions  are  kin- 
dred in  their  nature,  and  therefore  prop- 
er and  convenient  to  be  considered  to- 
gether. The  question  of  Protection  is  a 
subject  entirely  too  broad  to  be  crowded 
into  a  few  pages  only,  together  with  sev- 
eral other  subjects.  Oh  that  point  we 
therefore  content  ourselves  with  giving 
the  following  extracts  from  the  writings 
of  Mr;  Jefferson,  General  Jackson,  and 
the  speech  of  Mr,  Calhoun: 

"  'To  be  independent  for  the  comforts 
of  life,  we  must  fabricate  them  our- 
selves. We  must  now  place  the  manu- 
facturer by  the  side  of  the  agricultur- 
alist. The  grand  inquiry  now  is.  Shall 
we  make  our  own  comforts,  or  go  with- 
out them  at  the  will  of  a  foreign  nation^ 
He,  therefore,  who  is  now  against  do- 
mestic manufactures  must  be  for  reduc- 
ing us  either  to  dependence  on  that  for- 
eign nation,  or  to  be  clothed  in  skins  and 
to  live  like  wild  beasts  in  dens  and 
caverns.  I  am  not  one  of  those;  experi- 
ence has  taught  me  that  manufactures 
are  now  as  necessary  to  our  independ- 
ence as  to  our  comfort.' — Letter  of  Mr, 
Jefferson   to  Benjamin   Austin.     [1817], 

"  'I  ask.  What  is  the  real  situation  of 
the  agriculturalist?  Where  has  the  Amer- 
ican farmer  a  market  for  his  surplus 
produce?  Except  for  cotton,  he  has 
neither  a  foreign  nor  a  home  market. 
Does  not  this  clearly  prove,  when  there 
Is   no   market   at   home    or    abroad,    that 


there  [is]  too  much  labor  employed  in 
agriculture?  Common  sense  at  once 
points  out  the  remedy.  Take  from  agri- 
culture six  hundred  thousand  men, 
women,  and  children,  and  you  will  at 
once  give  a  market  for  more  breadstuffs 
than  all  Europe  now  furnishes.  In  short, 
we  have  been  too  long  subject  to  the  pol- 
icy of  British  merchants.  It  is  time  we 
should  become  a  little  more  American- 
ized, and  instead  of  feeding  the  paupers 
and  laborers  of  England,  feed  our  own; 
or  else  in  a  short  time,  by  continuing  our 
present  policy,  we  shall  all  be  rendered 
to  paupers  ourselves.' — General  Jackson's 
Letter  to  Dr.  Coleman.      [1824]. 

"  'When  our  manufactures  are  grown 
to  a  certain  perfection,  as  they  soon  will 
be,  under  the  fostering  care  of  govern- 
ment, the  farmer  will  find  a  ready  mar- 
ket for  his  surplus  produce,  and — what 
is  of  equal  consequence — a  certain  and 
cheap  supply  of  all  he  wants;  his  pros- 
perity will  diffuse  itself  to  every  class  of 
the  community.' — Speech  of  Hon.  J.  C. 
Calhoun  on  the  Tariff.      [1816]. 

Revenue    liost    Through    Free-Trade. 

"The  question  of  revenue  we  will  now 
briefly  consider.  For  several  years  past 
the  revenues  of  the  government  have 
been  unequal  to  its  expenditures,  and 
consequently  loan  after  loan,  sometimes 
direct  and  sometimes  indirect  in  form, 
has  been  resorted  to.  By  this  means  a 
new  national  debt  has  been  created,  and 
is  still  growing  on  us  with  a  rapidity 
fearful  to  contemplate — a  rapidity  only 
reasonably  to  be  expected  in  time  of  war. 
This  state  of  things  has  been  produced 
by  a  prevailing  unwillingness  either  to 
increase  the  Tariff  or  resort  to  direct 
taxation.  But  the  one  or  the  other  must 
come.  Coming  expenditures  must  be  met, 
and  the  present  debt  must  be  paid;  and 
money  cannot  always  be  borrowed  for 
these  objects.  The  system  of  loans  is 
but  temporary  in  its  nature,  and  must 
soon  explode.  It  is  a  system  not  only 
ruinous  while  it  lasts,  but  one  that  must 
soon  fail  and  leave  us  destitute.  As  an 
individual  who  undertakes  to  live  by 
borrowing  soon  finds  his  original  means 
devoured  by  interest,  and,  next,  no  one 
left  to  borrow  from,  so  must  it  be  with  a 
government. 

"We  repeat,  then,  that  a  Tariff  suffi- 
cient for  revenue,  or  a  direct  tax,  must 
soon  be  resorted  to;  and.  Indeed,  we  be- 
lieve this  alternative  is  now  denied  by 
no  one.  But  which  system  shall  be 
adopted?  Some  of  our  opponents,  in  the- 
ory, admit  the  propriety  of  a  Tariff  suf- 
ficient for  a  revenue;  but  even  they  will 
not  in  practice  vote  for  such  a  Tariff; 
while  others  boldly  advocate  direct  tax- 
ation. Inasmuch,  therefore,  as  some  of 
them  boldly  advocate  direct  taxation,  and 
all  the  rest — or  so  nearly  all  as  to  make 
exceptions  needlessi — refuse  to  adopt  the 
Tariff,  we  think  it  is  doing  them  no  in- 
justice to  class  them  all  as  advocates  of 
direct  taxation.     Indeed,  we  believe  they 


are  only  delaying  an  open  avowal  of  the 
system  till  they  can  assure  themselves 
that  the  people  will  tolerate  it. 

"Let  us,  then,  briefly  compare  the 
two  systems.  The  Tariff  is  the  cheaper 
system,  because  the  duties,  being  col- 
lected in  large  parcels  at  a  few  commer- 
cial points,  will  require  comparatively 
few  officers  in  their  collection;  while  by 
the  direct-tax  system  the  land  must  be 
literally  covered  with  assessors  and  col- 
lectors, going  forth  like  swarms  of  Egyp- 
tian locusts,  devouring  every  blade  of 
grass  and  other  green  thing.  And,  again, 
by  the  Tariff  system  the  whole  revenue 
is  paid  by  the  consumers  of  foreign 
goods,  and  those  chiefly  the  luxuries,  and 
not  the  necessaries,  of  life. 

"  By  this  system  the  man  who  contents 
himself  to  live  upon  the  products  of  his 
own  country  pays  nothing  at  all.  And 
surely  that  country  is  extensive  enough, 
and  its  products  abundant  and  varied 
enough,  to  answer  all  the  real  wants  of 
its  people.  In  short,  by  this  system  the 
burden  of  revenue  falls  almost  entirely 
on  the  wealthy  and  luxurious  few,  while 
the  substantial  and  laboring  many  who 
live  at  home,  and  upon  home  products, 
go  entirely  free.  By  the  direct  tax  sys- 
tem none  can  escape.  However,  strictly 
the  citizen  may  exclude  from  his  prem- 
ises all  foreign  luxuries — fine  cloths,  fine 
silks,  rich  wines,  golden  chains,  and  dia- 
mond rings — still,  for  the  possession  of 
his  house,  his  barn,  and  his  homespun, 
he  is  to  be  perpetually  haunted  and  har- 
assed by  the  tax-gatherer.  With  these 
views  we  leave  it  to  be  determined 
whether  we  or  our  opponents  are  the 
more  truly  democratic  on  the  subject." 

Signed  by  A.  Lincoln,  S.  T.  Logan,  A. 
T.  Bledsoe.     Dated  March  4,  1843. 

("Complete  Works  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln," Vol.  1.  Pages  243-247). 

Complete  indorsement  of  Protection. 

In  the  introductory  paragraph  briefly 
stating  the  substance  of  the  resolutions 
adopted  by  the  committee,  it  is  declared 
that  Protective  duties  are  "indispensably 
necessary  to  the  prosperity  of  the  Amer- 
ican people."  A  more  complete  endorse- 
ment of  the  Protective  system  could  not 
be  made.  This  is  followed  by  the  quota- 
tions from  the  utterances  of  three  emi- 
nent Democrats,  made  before  the  Tariff 
question  became  a  party  issue,  and  be- 
fore the  modern  Democratic  party  es- 
poused the  cause  of  slavery,  John  C.  Cal- 
houn, who  was  a  staunch  Protectionist 
until  1828,  when  he  changed  his  opinions 
in  the  interest  of  slaveholders;  Thomas 
Jefferson,  who  as  President  signed  the 
acts  of  Congress  of  March  27,  1804,  March 
3,  1807,  and  March  4,  1808,  which  in- 
creased duties  and  extended  Protection 
to  new  industries.  It  was  Jefferson  who 
in  his  message  to  Congress  in  1806  op- 
posed reducing  the  Tariff  to  get  rid  of  a 
surplus  revenue.  He  said:  "Shall  we  sup- 
press the  import  and  give  that  advan- 
tage   to    foreign    over    domestic    Indus- 


tries?"  Instead,  however,  of  advising-  a 
leduction  of  Protective  duties,  he  rec- 
ommended the  application  of  the  surplus 
revenue  to  "public  education,  roads,  riv- 
ers, canals,  and  such  other  objects  of 
public  improvement  as  it  may  be  thought 
proper." 

Jefferson   a   Defender   of    Protection. 

During-  the  eight  years  that  he  was 
President,  Jefferson  was  one  of  the 
staunch  defenders  of  Protection.  In 
1809  he  wrote  to  Thomas  Leiper,  of 
Philadelphia,    as   follows: 

"I  have  lately  inculcated  the  encour- 
agement of  manufactures  to  the  extent 
of  our  own  consumption,  at  least  in  all 
articles  of  which  we  raise  the  raw  ma- 
terial. On  this,  the  Federal  papers  and 
meetings  have  sounded  the  alarm  of  the 
Chinese  policy,  destruction  of  commerce, 
etc.  •  *  *  This  absurd  hue  and  cry 
has  contributed  much  to  federalize  New 
England;  their  doctrine  goes  to  the  sac- 
rificing of  agriculture  and  manufactures 
to  commerce;  to  the  calling  all  our  people 
from  the  interior  country  to  a  seashore 
to  turn  merchants;  and  to  convert  this 
great  agricultural  country  into  a  City 
of  Amsterdam.  But  I  trust  the  good 
sense  of  our  country  will  see  th^t  its 
g^reatest  prosperity  depends  on  a  due  bal- 
ance between  agriculture,  manufactures 
and  commerce." 

To  Governor  Jay,  a  little  later,  he 
wrote: 

"An  equilibrium  of  agriculture,  manu- 
factures and  commerce  is  certainly  be- 
coming   essential    to    our   independence." 

The  third  paragraph  is  from  Andrew 
Jackson's  famous  letter  to  Dr.  Coleman. 

TvFO  Systems  Contrasted. 

After  distinctly  approving  the  Protec- 
tive system  as  means  of  developing  the 
resources  and  industries  of  the  country 
and  making-  the  people  prosperous,  the 
two  Systems,  as  methods  of  providing 
revenue  for  the  national  treasury,  are 
considered  and  contrasted.  In  the  outset 
it  is  stated  that  the  Tariff  for  revenue 
only,  adopted  in  1833  and  practiced  until 
1842,  had  proven  a  complete  failure.  This 
was  the  first  trial  which  had  been  made 
of  the  Free-Trade  plan.  Its  first  effect 
was  to  greatly  stimulate  imports,  which 
suddenly  increased  from  $108,000,000  in 
1834  to  $176,000,000  in  1836.  Within  four 
years  our  imports  exceeded  our  exports 
by  $99,000,000.  The  total  balance  of 
trade  against  us  from  1834  to  1836  was 
$116,332,000.  A  financial  panic  came  in 
1837.  During  the  year  of  1839  the  ad- 
verse balance  of  trade,  including  the  ex- 
port of  $8,776,000  of  specie,  was  about 
$44,000,000,  From  1839  to  1842  over  $10,- 
000,000  of  specie  was  exported;  a  foreign 
debt  for  merchandise  purchased  of  over 
$30,000,000  was  created;  the  industries  of 
the  country  were  paralyzed,  and  a  period 
of  hard  times  set  in  which  spread  all 
over  the  country,  and  prosperity  did  not 
return   until  Protection   was   restored  by 


the  act  of  1842.  From  1838  to  1842  there 
was  a  deficiency  in  the  Treasury  of  $22,- 
590,000;  from  1837  to  1841  the  adminis- 
tration borrowed  $30,000,000.  The  public 
treasury  was  without  credit  and  bank- 
rupt. Unable  to  borrow  money  at  home 
the  Government  sent  Commissioners  to 
Europe  in  1840  with  instructions  to  place 
a  loan  of  $12,000,000.  The  effort  failed. 
The  government  then  advertised  for  a 
popular  loan,  and  only  $250,000  was  of- 
fered by  different  parties  at  rates  of  in- 
terest ranging  from  28  to  32  per  cent, 
per  annurn.  In  1841  the  Speaker  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  borrowed  on 
his  personal  credit  $100,000  to  loan  to 
Congressmen  in  order  that  they  might 
receive   their   salaries. 

Hence,  the  administration  was  pre- 
sented with  the  situation  as  stated  by 
Mr.  Lincoln: 

"We  repeat,  then,  that  a  Tariff  suffi- 
cient for  revenue,  or  a  direct  tax,  must 
soon    be   resorted   to." 

Ijincoln's    Arguments    Confirmed   by   Sub- 
sequent   Events. 

Mr.  Lincoln  then  states  that  a  resort 
to  the  system  of  direct  taxation  was 
then  favored  by  the  Democratic  party 
and  was  inevitable  if  their  Tariff  system 
was  restored.  Rather  than  see  the  in- 
dustries of  the  free  States  revived  by 
Protection,  they  would  leave  them  to 
perish  and  levy  direct  taxes  for  the  sup- 
port of  the  government.  Mr.  Lincoln 
had  such  a  profound  understanding, 
gained  not  only  from  the  practical  appli- 
cation of  the  Democratic  plan  between 
1838  and  1842,  but  from  the  scientific 
principles  upon  which  it  is  based,  that 
he  fully  realized  that  it  must  fail  when- 
ever tried.  Subsequent  events  have  jus- 
tified this  contention. 

The  Tariff  for  revenue  only,  known  as 
the  Walker  Tariff,  passed  in  1846,  and 
reductions  made  by  the  act  of  1857. 
brought  about  the  same  condition  of  the 
Treasury  and  so  embarrassed  Buchanan's 
administration  that  he  found  himself 
with  a  deficiency  of  $70,000,000.  a  na- 
tional debt  increased  by  $45,000,000,  for 
money  borrowed  to  pay  the  ordinary  ex- 
penses of  the  government,  and  produced 
a  period  of  hard  times  even  worse  than 
that  of  1838   to   1842. 

Buchanan    Turned    to    Protection. 

In  his  message  to  Congress  of  Decem- 
ber, 1857,  President  Buchanan  said: 
"Panic  and  distress  of  a  fearful  char- 
acter prevail  throughout  the  land.  Our 
laboring  population  is  without  employ- 
ment and  consequently  deprived  of  the 
means  of  earning  their  bread.  Indeed  all 
hope  seems  to  have  deserted  the  minds 
of  men,"  Mr.  Buchanan  finally  acquiesced 
in  a  return  to  Protection  and  signed  the 
Morrill    Tariff   Bill,   March    2,    1861. 

Grover  Cleveland  had  the  same  experi- 
ence with  a  revenue  Tariff,  and  was 
compelled    to    borrow    $256,000,000, 

No  Democratic  President,  however,  has 


10 


been  bold  enough  to  resort  to  direct  tax- 
ation in  aid  of  a  deficiency  creating" 
Free-Trade  Tariff  law  until  Woodrow 
Wilson  gave  it  another  trial,  the  burdens 
of  whose  policy  are  oppressing  nearly 
every  citizen,  and  whose  tax  assessors, 
as  Lincoln  said,  "are  going  forth  like 
swarms  of  Egyptian  locusts,  devouring 
every  blade  of  grass  and  every  green 
thing."  Lincoln  was  a  great  prophet, 
but  he  was  a  great  prophet  because  he 
understood  the  subject. 

Those  Who  Pay  Tariff  Duties. 

Mr.  Lincoln  then  takes  up  tlje  effect 
of  the  two  systems  on  the  consumers 
and  shows  that  it  is  only  the  consumers 
of  foreign  made  goods  who  pay  any  part 
of  the  duties  levied;  that  by  the  Protec- 
tive system  "the  man  who  contents  him- 
self to  live  on  the  products  of  his  own 
countrj'  pays  nothing  at  all,"  and  then 
follows  a  recognition  of  the  wonderful 
resources  of  our  country  and  the  capac- 
ity of  our  people  in  the  statement:  "And 
surely  that  country  is  extensive  enough, 
and  its  products  abundant  and  varied 
enough  to  answer  all  of  the  real  wants 
of  its  people." 

He  then  states  that  under  the  Pro- 
tective system,  "the  burthen  of  revenue 
falls  almost  entirely  on  the  wealthy  and 
luxurious  few,  while  the  substantial  and 
laboring  many  who  live  at  home,  and 
upon  home  products,  go  entirely  free." 

The  importance  to  be  attached  to  the 
Whig  circular  is  found  not 'alone  in  the 
fact  that  it  contains  an  unqualified  en- 
dorsement of  the  Protective  policy,  but 
the  carefully  considered  discussion  of 
the  revenue  features  of  the  opposing 
Tariff  policies.  The  objections  to  the 
Protective  policy  then  being  urged  by 
the  Free-Traders  are  specifically  and 
completely  answered. 

Lincoln's  Early  Political  Career. 

Although  living  in  the  then  remote 
and  sparsely  settled  agricultural  section 
of  the  country,  his  speeches  and  writings 
show  that  he  was  one  of  the  best  inform- 
ed men  of  his  time  on  all  great  questions 
pertaining  to  American  politics.  From 
the  time  of  his  entrance  into  public  life, 
Central  Illinois  contained  a  group  of  men 
of  great  talent;  leaders  of  both  the  Whig 
and  Democratic  parties,  who  in  later 
years  gained  great  distinction  at  the  bar, 
on  the  bench,  and  in  the  halls  of  Con- 
gress. From  among  these  sprang  two 
conspicuous  characters,  Stephen  A.  Doug- 
las, one  of  the  greatest  debaters  that 
ever  occupied  a  seat  in  the  United  States 
Senate,  and  who  finally  became  the  lead- 
er of  the  Northern  wing  of  the  Demo- 
cratic party,  and  Abraham  Lincoln.  In 
those  times  political  questions  were  the 
chief  topic  of  discussion  among  men. 
Nearly  every  lawyer  divided  his  time  be- 
tween law  and  politics.  There  were 
few  newspapers,  and.  in  the  earlier  years 
of  Mr.  Lincoln's  career,  no  railroads  or 
telegraphs. 


Mr.  Lincoln  entered  politics  upon  his 
return  from  the  Black  Hawk  War  in 
1832,  at  the  age  of  23  years,  as  a  candi- 
date for  the  Illinois  Legislature.  Not- 
withstanding his  defeat,  he  entered  the 
field  again  and  was  elected  to  that  body 
successively  in  1834,  1836,  1838,  and  1840. 
He  was  Presidential  Elector  on  the  Whig 
ticket  in  1840,  1844,  1848,  and  in  1846  he 
was  elected  to  Congress,  serving  one 
term.  He  received  votes  in  the  National 
Republican  Convention  of  1856  for  the 
office  of  Vice-President.  In  1844  he 
stumped  the  State  of  Illinois  for  Henry 
Clay.  In  1848  he  was  called  to  Massa- 
chusetts and  made  speeches  for  the  Whig 
party  to  counteract  the  influence  of 
Henry  Wilson,  Charles  Francis  Adams, 
Charles  Sumner,  Stephen  C.  Phillips,  E. 
Rockwood  Hoar,  Richard  H.  Dana,  Jr., 
Anson  Burlingame  and  John  A.  Andrews, 
who  had  revolted  against  the  nomination 
of  General  Taylor.  The  Lowell  Journal 
and  Courier  in  its  issue  of  September 
18th,  1848,  said  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  speech 
at  that  place: 

"It  was  replete  with  good  sense,  sound 
reasoning  and  irresistible  argument,  and 
spoken  with  that  perfect  command  of 
manner  and  matter  which  so  eminently 
distinguishes  the  Western  orators." 

From  the  Legislature  to  the  Presidency. 

In  1843  he  was  a  member  of  the  Whig 
Central  Campaign  Committee  of  the 
State,  and  for  many  years  was  one  of 
Illinois'  most  influential  public  men.  He 
fought  his  way  step  by  step  from  a 
member  of  the  Legislature  in  1835  to  the 
Presidency  in  1860.  He  was  never  for  a 
moment  out  of  politics.  He  was,  year  by 
year,  extending  his  acquaintance,  study- 
ing and  mastering  the  great  political 
questions  of  the  day,  and  storing  up  in- 
formation  and  reasoning  out  problems 
which  enabled  him  in  his  great  debate 
v.'ith  Stephen  A.  Douglas  in  1858,  and  in 
speeches  which  he  delivered  at  Spring- 
field, Columbus,  Cincinnati,  Cooper  In- 
stitute and  other  places,  to  present  the 
slavery  question  before  the  people  of  the 
United  States  in  an  entirely  new  aspect. 
It  was  Lincoln's  ability  as  a  constitu- 
tional lawyer  that  showed  the  American 
people  how  slavery  could  be  arrested  in 
its  extension  and  finally  'extinguished 
under  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States. 

"When    Lincoln    Made    More    Speeches    on 

the   Tariff   Than   Any   Other    Subject. 

The    Tariff    Campaigns    of    1840, 

1S42  and  1844. 

The  campaigns  of  1840,  1842  and  1844 
were  fought  largely  on  the  Tariff  ques- 
tion. Illinois  was  a  Democratic  State, 
and  Lincoln  and  his  associates  were 
striving  to  build  up  the  Whig  Party  in 
order  that  a  national  bank,  the  system  of 
internal  improvements  and  a  Protective 
Tarilt  might  prevail  throughout  the 
country.  Henry  Clay  was  beaten  for 
President  in  1844  on  all  of  these  issues, 


11 


the  Tariff  being-  the  most  prominent,  by- 
James  K.  Polk.  Clay  lost  New  York  and 
Michigan  by  the  votes  drawn  off  from  the 
Whig  Party  by  James  G.  Birney,  the 
Abolitionist  candidate.  Besides,  the 
'Democrats  carried  Pennsylvania  by  a 
letter  written  by  Polk  declaring  in  favor 
of  Protection.  The  rallying  cry  of  the 
Democratic  party  was  "Polk,  Dallas,  and 
the  Tariff  of  1842,"  asserting  that  Polk 
was  as  good  a  Tariff  man  as  Henry  Clay. 
As  soon,  howe'ver,  as  Polk  was  inaugur- 
ated, the  mask  was  thrown  off,  and  he 
emerged  a  Free-Trader.  The  Protective 
act  of  1842  was  repealed,  and  the  revenue 
Tariff,  known  as  the  Walker  Tariff  of 
1846,  was  enacted.  Lincoln  was  elected 
to  Congress  in  184€,  serving  one  term.  He 
had  been  on  the  stump  in  the  exciting 
campaigns  of  1840,  1842  and  1844,  and 
1846,  and  as  he  says,  "he  made  more 
speeches  on  the  Tariff  than  on  any  other 
subject."  Such  was  the  political  situa- 
tion when,  between  the  time  of  his  elec- 
tion of  1846  and  taking  his  seat  in  Con- 
gress, December  1,  1847,  he  wrote  "Frag- 
ments of  Tariff  Discussion"  ("Complete 
Works  of  Abraham  Lincoln,"  edited  by 
John  G.  Nicolay  and  John  Hay,  published 
by  Francis  D.  Tandy  Co.,  N.  Y.  Vol.  1, 
pages  300  to  315)   as  follows: 

"Fragments  of  Tariff  Discussion.  Lin- 
coln Had  Studied,  Weighed  and  Carefully 
Analyzed  the  Tariff  Liegislation  of  the 
United   States.»» 

"Whether  the  Protective  policy  shall 
be  finally  abandoned  is  now  the  question. 
(Discussion  and  experience  already  had, 
and  question  now  in  greater  dispute 
than  ever.  Has  there  not  been  some 
great  error  in  the  mode  of  discussion? 
Propose  a  single  issue  of  fa(tt,  namely: 
From  1816  to  the  present,  have  Pro- 
tected articles  cost  us  more  of  labor 
during  the  higher  than  during  the  lower 
duties  upon  them?  Introduce  the  evi- 
dence. Analyze  this  issue,  and  try  to 
show  that  it  embraces  the  true  and 
whole  question  of  the  Protective  policy. 
Intended  as  a  test  of  experience.  The 
period  selected  is  fair,  because  it  is  a 
period  of  peace — a  period  sufficiently 
long  (to)  furnish  a  fair  average  under 
all  other  causes  operating  on  prices,  a 
period  in  which  various  modifications 
of  higher  and  lower  duties  have  occur- 
red. Protected  articles  only  are  em- 
braced. Show  that  these  only  belong  to 
the  question.  The  labor  price  only  is 
embraced.     Show  this  to  be  correct. 

Effect    of   Duties   Upon   Prices. 

"I  suppose  the  true  effect  of  duties 
upon  prices  to  be  as  follows:  If  a 
certain  duty  be  levied  upon  an  article 
which  by  nature  cannot  be  produced  in 
this  country,  as  three  cents  a  pound 
upon  coffee,  the  effect  will  be  that  the 
consumer  will  pay  one  cent  more  per 
pound  than  before,  the  producer  will 
take  one  cent  less  and  the  merchant  one 
cent  less  in  profits;   In  other  words,   the 


burden  of  the  duty  will  (be)  distributed 
over  consumption,  production  and  com- 
merce, and  not  confined  to  either.  But  if 
a  duty  amounting  to  full  Protection  be 
levied  upon  an  article  which  can  be  pro- 
duced here  with  as  little  labor  as  else- 
where, as  iron,  that  article  will  ultimate- 
ly and  at  no  distant  day,  in  consequence 
of  such  duty,  be  sold  to  our  people 
cheaper  than  before,  at  least,  by  the 
amount  of  the  cost  of  carrying  it  from 
abroad. 

Useless  Labor. 
"First  as  to  useless  labor.  Before 
proceeding,  however,  it  may  be  as  well 
to  give  a  specimen  of  what  I  conceive 
to  be  useless  labor.  I  say,  then,  that  all 
carrying,  and  incidents  of  carrying,  of 
articles  from  the  place  of  their  produc- 
tion to  a  distant  place  for  consumption, 
which  articles  could  be  produced  of  as 
good  quality,  in  sufficient  quantity  and 
with  as  little  labor  at  the  place  of  con- 
sumption as  at  the  place  carried  from,  is 
useless  labor.  Applying  this  principle 
to  our  own  country  by  an  example, 
let  us  suppose  that  A  and  B  are  a 
Pennsylvania  farmer  and  a  Pennsylvania 
iron  maker,  whose  lands  are  adjoining. 
Under  the  Protective  policy  A  is  fur- 
nishing B  with  bread  and  meat,  and 
vegetables  and  fruits,  and  food  for 
horses  and  oxen,  and  fresh  supplies  of 
hordes  and  oxen  themselves  occasionally 
and  receiving  in  exchange  all  the  iron, 
iron  utensils,  tools  and  implements  he 
needs.  In  this  process  of  exchange  each 
receives  the  whole  of  that  which  the 
other  parts  with,  and  the  reward  of  labor 
between  them  is  perfect;  each  receiving 
the  product  of  just  so  much  labor  as  he 
has  himself  bestowed  on  what  he  parts 
with  for  it.  But  the  change  comes.  The 
Protective  policy  is  abandoned,  and  A 
determines  to  buy  his  iron  and  iron 
manufactures  of  C  in  Europe.  This  he 
can  only  do  by  a  direct  or  an  indirect  ex- 
change of  the  produce  of  his  farm  for 
them.  We  will  suppose  the  direct  ex- 
change is  adopted.  In  this  A  desires  to 
exchange  ten  barrels  of  flour — the  pre- 
cise product  of  one  hundred  days'  labor — 
for  the  largest  quantitj'  of  iron,  etc.,  that 
he  can  get.  C  also  wishes  to  exchange 
the  precise  product,  in  iron,  of  one  hun- 
dred days'  labor  for  the  greatest  quan- 
tity of  flour  he  can  get.  In  intrinsic 
value  the  things  to  be  so  exchanged  are 
precisely   equal. 

"Wasteful  Transportation. 

"But  before  this  exchange  can  take 
place  the  flour  must  be  carried  from 
Pennsylvania  to  England  and  the  iron 
from  England  to  Pennsylvania.  The 
flour  starts.  The  wagoner  who  hauls  it 
to  Philadelphia  takes  a  part  of  it  to  pay 
him  for  his  labor;  then  a  merchant  there 
takes  a  little  more  for  storage  and  for- 
warding commission,  and  another  takes 
a  little  more  for  insurance;  and  then  the 
shipowner  carries  it  across  the  water 
and    takes    a    little    more    of    it    for    his 


12 


trouble.  Still,  before  it  reaches  C  it  is 
tolled  two  or  three  times  more  for  stor- 
age, drayag-e,  commission,  and  so  on;  so 
when  C  gets  it  there  are  but  seven  and 
a  half  barrels  of  it  left.  The  iron,  too, 
In  its  transit  from  England  to  Pennsyl- 
vania goes  through  the  same  process  of 
tolling,  so  that  when  it  reaches  A  there 
are  but  three-quarters  of  it  left.  The 
result  of  this  case  is  that  A  and  C  have 
each  parted  with  one  hundred  days'  labor 
and  each  received  but  seventy-five  in  re- 
turn. That  the  carrying  in  this  case  was 
introduced  by  A  ceasing  to  buy  of  B  and 
turning  (to)  C;  that  it  was  utterly  use- 
less, and  that  it  is  ruinous  in  its  effects 
upon  A,  are  all  little  less  than  self-evi- 
dent. "But,"  asks  one,  "if  A  is  now  only 
getting  three-quarters  as  much  iron  from 
C  for  ten  barrels  of  flour  as  he  used  to 
get  of  B,  why  does  he  not  turn  back  to 
B?"  The  answer  is:  "B  has  quit  mak- 
ing iron,  and  so  has  none  to  sell."  "But 
why  did  B  quit  making?"  "Because  A 
quit  buying  of  him,  and  he  had  no  other 
customer  to  sell  to."  "But,  surely,  A  did 
not  cease  buying  of  B  with  the  expecta- 
tion of  buying  of  C  on  harder  terms?" 
"Certainly  not.  Let  me  tell  you  how  that 
was.  When  B  was  making  iron  as  well 
as  C,  B  had  but  one  customer,  this  far- 
mer A:  C  had  four  customers  in  Europe." 

Falsity  of  the  "Cheapest  Market'*  Theory. 

It  seems  to  be  an  opinion  very  gener- 
ally entertained  that  the  condition  of  a 
nation  is  best  whenever  it  can  buy 
cheapest;  but  this  is  not  necessarily 
true,  because  if,  at  the  same  time  and 
by  the  same  cause,  it  is  compelled  to 
sell  correspondingly  cheap,  nothing  is 
gained.  Then  it  is  said  the  best  con- 
dition is  when  we  can  buy  cheapest  and 
sell  dearest;  but  this  again  is  not  neces- 
sarily true,  because  with  both  these  we 
might  have  scarcely  anything  to  sell,  or, 
which  is  the  same  thing,  to  buy  with. 
To  illustrate  this,  suppose  a  man  in  the 
present  state  of  things  is  laboring  the 
year  round,  at  ten  dollars  per  month, 
which  amounts  in  the  year  to  ?120.  A 
change  in  affairs  enables  him  to  buy  sup- 
plies at  half  the  former  price,  to  get 
fifty  dollars  per  month  for  his  labor,  but 
at  the  same  time  deprives  him  of  em- 
ployment during  all  the  months  of  the 
year,  but  one.  In  this  case,  though 
goods  have  fallen  one-half,  and  labor 
risen  five  to  one,  it  is  still  plain  that  at 
the  end  of  the  year  the  laborer  is  twenty 
dollars  poorer  than  under  the  old  state  of 
things. 

Value  of   Constant   E^mployment. 

These  reflections  show  that  to  reason 
and  act  correctly  on  this  subject  we 
must  look  not  merely  to  buying  cheap, 
nor  yet  to  buying  cheap  and  selling  dear, 
but  also  to  having  constant  employ- 
ment, so  that  we  may  have  the  largest 
possible  amount  of  something  to  sell. 
This  matter  of  employment  can  only  be 
secured  by  an  ample,  steady,  and  certain 


market  to  sell  the  products  of  our  labor 
in. 

But  let  us  yield  the  point,  and  admit 
that  by  abandoning  the  Protective  policy 
our  farmers  can  purchase  their  supplies 
of  manufactured  articles  cheaper  than 
by  continuing  it;  and  then  let  us  see 
whether,  even  at  that,  they  will  upon  the 
whole  be  gainers  by  the  change.  To  sim- 
plify this  question,  let  us  suppose  the 
whole  agricultural  interest  of  the 
country  to  be  in  the  hands  of  one  man, 
who  has  one  hundred  laborers  in  his 
employ;  the  whole  manufacturing  inter- 
est to  be  in  the  hands  of  one  other  man, 
who  has  twenty  laborers  in  his  employ. 
The  farmer  owns  all  the  plow  and  pas- 
ture land,  and  the  manufacturer  all  the 
iron  mines  and  coal  banks  and 
sites  of  water  power.  Each  is 
pushing  on  his  way,  and  obtain- 
ing supplies  from  the  other  so  far 
as  he  needs — that  is,  the  manufac- 
turer is  buying  of  the  farmer  all  the 
cotfon  he  can  use  in  his  cotton  factory; 
all  the  wool  he  can  use  in  his  woolen 
establishment;  all  the  bread  and  meats 
as  well  as  all  the  fruits  and  vegetables 
which  are  necessary  for  himself  and  all 
his  hands  in  all  his  departments;  all 
the  corn  and  oats  and  hay  which  are  nec- 
essary for  all  his  horses  and  oxen,  as 
well  as  fresh  supplies  of  horses  and 
oxen  themselves  to  do  all  his  heavy  haul- 
ing about  his  iron  works  and  generally 
of  every  sort.  The  farmer  in  turn  is  buy- 
ing of  the  manufacturer  all  the  iron,  iron 
tools,  wooden  tools,  cotton  goods,  woolen 
goods,  etc.,  that  he  needs  in  his  business 
and  for  his  hands. 

Must   Have   Something:  to  Buy  With. 

But  after  a  while  the  farmer  discovers 
that  were  it  not  for  the  Protective 
policy  he  could  buy  all  of  these  supplies 
cheaper  from  a  European  manufacturer, 
owing  to  the  fact  that  the  price  of  labor 
is  only  one-quarter  as  high  there  as  here. 
He  and  his  hands  are  a  majority  of  the 
whole,  and,  therefore,  have  the  legal  and 
moral  right  to  have  their  interest  first 
consulted.  They  throw  off  the  Protec- 
'  five  policy  and  the  farmer  ceases  buying 
of  the  home  manufacturer.  Very  soon, 
however,  he  discovers  that  to  buy  even 
at  the  cheaper  rate  requires  something 
to  buy  with,  and  somehow  or  other  he 
is  falling  down  in  this  particular. 

All  Things  Belong;  to  Labor. 

In  the  early  days  of  our  race  the  Al- 
mighty said  to  the  first  of  our  race  "In 
the  sweat  of  thy  face  shalt  thou  eat 
bread";  and  since  then,  if  we  except  the 
light  and  the  air  of  heaven,  no  good 
thing  has  been  or  can  be  enjoyed  by  us 
without  having  first  cost  labor.  And, 
inasmuch,  as  most  good  things  are  pro- 
duced by  labor,  it  follows  that  all  such 
things  of  right  belong  to  those  whose 
labor  has  produced  them.  But  it  has 
so  happened  In  all  the  ages  of  the 
world     that     some     have     labored     and 


13 


others  have  without  labor  enjoyed  a 
large  proportion  of  the  fruits.  This  is 
wrong-,  and  should  not  continue.  To 
secure  to  each  laborer  the  whole  pro- 
duct of  his  labor,  or  as  nearly  as  possi- 
ble, is  a  worthy  object  of  any  good 
government. 

H.OW    Can    Government    Help? 

But  then,  a  question  arises.  How  can 
a  government  best  effect  this?  In  our 
own  country,  in  its  present  condition, 
will  the  Protective  principle  advance  or 
retard  this  object?  Upon  this  subject 
the  habits  of  our  whole  species  fall  into 
three  great  classes — useful  labor,  use- 
less labor  and  idleness.  Of  these  the 
first  only  is  meritorious,  and  to  it  all 
the  products  of  labor  rightfully  belong; 
but  the  two  latter,  while  they  exist,  are 
heavy  pensioners  upon  the  first,  robbing 
it  of  a  large  portion  of  its  just  rights. 
The  only  remedy  for  this  is  to,  so  far  as 
possible,  drive  useless  labor  and  idle- 
ness out  of  existence.  And  first,  as  to 
useless  labor.  Befonfc  making  war  upon 
this,  we  must  learn  to  distinguish  it 
from  the  useful.  It  appears  to  me  that 
all  labor  done  directly  and  indirectly  in 
carrying  articles  to  the  place  of  con- 
sumption, which  could  have  been  pro- 
duced in  sufficient  abundance,  with  as 
little  labor,  at  the  place  of  consumption 
as  at  the  place  where  they  were  carried 
from,  is  useless  labor, 

Xeedless  Labor  in   Carrying. 

Let  us  take  a  few  examples  of  the 
application  of  this  principle  to  our  own 
country.  Iron  and  everything  made  of 
iron  can  be  produced  in  sufficient  abun- 
dance, and  with  as  little  labor  in  the 
United  States  as  anywhere  else  in  the 
world,  therefore,  all  labor  done  in  bring- 
ing iron  and  its  fabrics  from  a  foreign 
country  to  the  United  States  is  useless 
labor.  The  same  precisely  may  be  said 
of  cotton,  wool  and  of  their  fabrics,  re- 
spectively, as  well  as  many  other  arti- 
cles. While  the  uselessness  of  the 
carrying  labor  is  equally  true  of  all  the 
articles  mentioned,  and  of  many  others 
not  mentioned,  it  is  perhaps  more  glar- 
ingly obvious  in  relation  to  the  cotton 
goods  we  purchase  from  abroad.  The 
raw  cotton  from  which  they  are  made 
itself  grows  in  our  own  country,  is  car- 
ried by  land  and  by  water  to  England, 
is  there  spun,  woven,  dyed,  stamped, 
etc.,  and  then  carried  back  again  and 
worn  in  the  very  country  where  it 
grew,  and  partly  by  the  very  persons 
who  grew  it.  Why  should  it  not  be 
spun,  wove,  etc.,  in  the  very  neighbor- 
hood where  it  both  grows  and  is  con- 
sumed, and  the  carrying  thereby  dis'- 
pensed  with?  Has  nature  interposed 
any  obstacle?  Are  not  all  the  agents — 
animal  power,  water  power  and  steam 
power — as  good  and  as  abundant  here 
as  elsewhere?  Will  not  as  small  an 
amount  of  human  labor  answer  here  as 
elsewhere?     We  may  easily  see  that  the 


cost  of  this  useless  labor  is  very  heavy. 
It  includes  not  only  the  cost  of  actual 
carriage,  but  also  the  insurance  of  every 
kind,  and  the  profits  of  the  merchants 
through  whose  hands  it  passes.  All 
these  create  a  heavy  burden  necessarily 
falling  upon  the  useful  labor  connected 
with  such  articles,  either  depressing  the 
price  to  the  producer  or  advancing  it  to 
the  consumer,  or,  what  is  more  probable, 
doing  both  in  part. 

Cotton    as    an    Illustration. 

A  supposed  case  will  serve  to  illus- 
trate several  points  now  to  the  purpose. 
A,  in  the  interior  of  South  Carolina, 
has  one  hundred  pounds  of  cotton, 
which  he  supposes  to  be  the  precise 
product  of  one  man's  labor  for  twenty 
days.  B,  in  Manchester,  England,  has 
one  hundred  yards  of  cotton  cloth,  the 
precise  product  of  the  same  amount  of 
labor.  This  lot  of  cotton  and  lot  of 
cloth  are  precisely  equal  to  each  other 
in  their  intrinsic  value.  But  A  wishes 
to  part  with  his  cotton  for  the  largest 
quantity  of  cloth  he  can  get.  B  also 
wishes  to  part  with  his  cloth  for  the 
greatest  quantity  of  cotton  he  can  get. 
An  exchange  is,  therefore,  necessary; 
but  before  this  can  be  effected  the  cot- 
ton must  be  carried  to  Manchester  and 
the  cloth   to  South  Carolina. 

To    Manchester    and    Back. 

The  cotton  starts  to  Manchester.  The 
man  that  hauls  it  to  Charleston  in  his 
wagon  takes  a  little  out  of  it  to  pay 
him  for  his  trouble;  the  merchant  who 
stores  it  awhile  before  the  ship  is  ready 
to  sail  takes  a  little  out  for  his  trouble; 
the  shipowner  who  carries  it  across  the 
water  takes  a  little  out  for  his  trouble. 
Still,  before  it  gets  to  Manchester  it  is 
tolled  two  or  three  times  more  for  dray- 
age,  storage,  commission,  and  so  on,  so 
that  when  it  reaches  B's  hands  there 
are  but  seventy-five  pounds  of  it  left. 
The  cloth,  too,  in  its  transit  from  Man- 
chester to  South  Carolina  goes  through 
the  same  process  of  tolling,  so  that 
when  it  reaches  A  there  are  but  seven- 
ty-five yards  of  it.  Now,  in  this  case, 
A  and  B  each  have  parted  with  twenty 
days'  labor,  and  each  received  but  fif- 
teen in  return.  But  let  us  suppose  that 
B  has  removed  to  the  side  of  A's  farm 
in  South  Carolina,  and  has  there  made 
his  lot  of  cloth.  Is  it  not  clear  that  he 
and  A  can  then  exchange  their  cloth  and 
cotton,  each  getting  the  whole  of  what 
the  other  parts  with? 

Imposes    a    Direct    Burden. 

This  supposed  case  of  carrying  100 
pounds  of  cotton  to  Manchester  and 
bringing  back  100  yards  of  cotton  cloth 
to  South  Carolina  shows  the  utter  use- 
lessness of  the  carrying  labor  in  all 
similar  cases,  and  also  the  direct  burden 
it    imposes     upon     useful    labor.  And 

whoever  will  take  up  the  train  of  re- 
flection suggested  by  this  case  and  run 
it  out  to  the  full  extent  of  its  just  ap- 


14 


plication,  will  be  astonished  at  the 
amount  of  useless  labor  he  will  thus  dis- 
cover to  be  done  in  this  very  way.  I 
am  mistaken  if  it  is  not  in  fact  many 
times  over  equal  to  all  the  real  want  in 
the  world.  This  useless  labor  I  would 
have  discontinued,  and  those  engaged 
In  it  added  to  the  class  of  useful  labor- 
ers. If  I  be  asked  whether  I  would  de- 
stroy all  commerce,  I  answer,  Certainly 
not;  I  would  continue  it  where  it  is 
necessary  and  discontinue  it  where  it  is 
not.  An  instance:  I  would  continue 
commerce  so  far  as  it  is  employed  in 
bringing  us  coffee,  and  I  would  dis- 
continue it  so  far  as  it  is  employed  in 
bringing  us  cotton  goods. 

Would    the    Farmer    Be    the    Gainer? 

But  let  us  yield  the  point  and  admit 
by  abandoning  the  Protective  policy  our 
farmers  can  purchase  their  supplies  of 
manufactured  articles  cheaper  than  be- 
fore; and  then  let  us  see  whether,  even 
at  that,  the  farmers  will  upon  the  whole 
be  gainers  by  the  change.  To  simplify 
this  question,  let  us  suppose  our  whole 
population  toi  consist  of  but  twenty 
men.  Under  the  prevalence  of  the  Pro- 
tective policy,  fifteen  of  these  are  farm- 
ers, one  is  a  miller,  one  manufactures 
iron,  one  implements  from  iron,  one  cot- 
ton goods,  and  one  woolen  goods.  The 
farmers  discover  that,  owing  to  labor 
only  costing  one-quarter  as  much  in 
Europe  as  here,  they  can  buy  iron,  iron 
implements,  cotton  goods  and  woolen 
goods  cheaper  when  brought  from  Eu- 
rope than  when  made  by  their  neigh- 
bors. They  are  the  majority,  and  there- 
fore have  both  the  legal  and  moral 
right  to  have  their  interest  first  con- 
sulted. They  throw  off  the  Protective 
policy  and  cease  buying  these  articles 
of  their  neighbors.  But  they  soon  dis- 
cover that  to  buy,  and  at  the  cheaper 
rate,   requires  something  to  buy  with. 

Nothing  Doing  at  the  Furnace. 

Falling  short  in  this  particular,  one 
of  these  farmers  takes  a  load  of  wheat 
to  the  miller  and  gets  it  made  into 
flour,  and  starts,  as  has  been  his  cus- 
tom, to  the  iron  furnace.  He  ap- 
proaches the  well-known  spot,  but, 
strange  to  say,  all  is  cold  and  still  as 
death;  no  smoke  rises,  no  furnace  roars, 
no  anvil  rings. 

After  some  search  he  finds  the  owner 
of  the  desolate  place  and  calls  out  to 
him:  "Come,  Vulcan,  don't  you  want  to 
buy  a  load  of  flour?" 

"Why,"  says  "Vulcan,  "I  am  hungry 
enough,  to  be  sure;  haven't  tasted  bread 
for  a  week,  but  then  you  see  my  works 
are  stopped  and  I  have  nothing  to  give 
you   for  your  flour." 

"But,  Vulcan,  why  don't  you  go  to 
work   and   get  something?" 

"I  am  ready  to  do  so;  will  you  hire 
me,   farmer?" 

"Oh,  no;  I  could  only  set  you  to  rais- 
ing wheat;   and  you  see  I  have  more  of 


that  already  than  I  can  get  anything 
for." 

"But  give  me  employment  and  send 
your  flour  to  Europe  for  a  market." 

"Why,  Vulcan;  how  silly  you  talk. 
Don't  you  know  they  raise  wheat  in 
Europe  as  well  as  here,  and  labor  is  so 
cheap  there  as  to  fix  the  price  of  flour 
there  so  low  as  scarcely  to  pay  the 
long  carriage  of  it  from  here,  leaving 
nothing  whatever  to  me?" 

"But,  farmer,  couldn't  you  pay  to 
raise  and  prepare  gardenstufCs  and 
fruits,  such  as  radishes,  cabbages,  Irish 
and  sweet  potatoes,  cucumbers,  water- 
melons and  muskmelons,  plums,  pears, 
peaches,  apples,  and  the  like?  All  these 
are  good  things  and  used  to  sell  well." 

"So  they  did  use  to  sell  well,  but  It 
was  to  you  we  sold  them,  and  now  you 
tell  us  you  have  nothing  to  buy  with. 
Of  course,  I  cannot  sell  such  things  to 
the  other  farmers,  because  each  of  them 
raises  enough  for  himself,  and,  in  fact, 
rather  wishes  to  sell  than  to  buy. 
Neither  can  I  send  them  to  Europe  for 
a  market,  because,  to  say  nothing  of 
European  markets  being  stocked  with 
such  articles  at  lower  prices  than  I  can 
afford,  they  are  of  such  a  nature  as  to 
rot  before  they  could  reach  there.  The 
truth  is,  Vulcan,  I  am  compelled  to  quit 
raising  these  things  altogether,  except 
a  few  for  my  own  use,  and  this  leaves 
part  of  my  own  time  idle  on  my  hands, 
instead  of  my  finding  employment  for 
you." 

Useless  Labor  as  Bad  as  Idleness. 

"If  at  any  time  all  labor  should  cease 
and  all  existing  provisions  be  equally 
divided  among  the  people,  at  the  end  of 
a  single  year  there  could  scarcely  be 
one  human  being  left  alive;  all  would 
have  perished  by  want  of  subsistence. 
So,  again,  if  upon  such  division  all  that 
sort  of  labor  which  produces  provisions 
should  cease,  and  each  individual  should 
take  up  so  much  of  his  share  as  he 
could  and  carry  it  continually  arouna 
his  habitation,  although  in  this  carry- 
ing the  amount  of  labor  going  on  might 
be  as  great  as  ever,  so  long  as  it  could 
last,  at  the  end  of  the  year  the  result 
would  be  precisely  the  same — that  is, 
none  would  be  left  living. 

"The  first  of  these  propositions  shows 
that  universal  idleness  would  speedily 
result  in  universal  ruin,  and  the  second 
shows  that  useless  labor  is,  in  this  re- 
spect, the  same  as  idleness.  I  submit, 
then,  whether  it  does  not  follow  that 
partial  idleness  and  partial  useless  la- 
bor would,  in  the  proportion  of  their 
extent,  in  like  manner,  result  in  partial 
ruin;  whether,  if  all  should  subsist  upon 
the  labor  that  one-half  should  perform, 
it  would  not  result  in  very  scanty  allow- 
ance to  the  whole. 

"Believing  that  these  propositions  and 
the  conclusions  I  draw  from  them  can- 
not be  successfully  controverted,  I  for 
the    present    assume    their    correctness, 


IS 


and  proceed  to  try  to  show  that  the 
abandonment  of  the  Protective  policy 
by  the  American  Government  must  re- 
sult in  the  increase  of  both  useless 
labor  and  idleness,  and  so,  in  propor- 
tion, must  produce  want  and  ruin 
among-  our  people." 

Lincoln's   Arguments   Analyzed. 

The  "Fragments  of  Tariff  Discussion" 
Is  an  exceedingly  valuable  document, 
not  alone  because  it  contains  Lincoln's 
views  on  some  of  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples underlying-  the  controversy,  but 
for  the  plain,  simple  and  original  meth- 
od employed  in  illustrating  them.  Lin- 
coln had  gone  to  the  very  root  of  the 
whole  question,  and  discovered  the  true 
relation  of  domestic  exchanges  to  the 
public  welfare.  He  draws  a  clear  dis- 
tinction between  domestic  exchanges 
and  foreign  trade.  He  emphasizes  the 
value  of  a  home  market  over  a  foreign 
market,  the  importance  of  the  employ- 
ment of  home  labor  instead  of  foreign 
labor,  and  the  interdependence  of  one 
industry  or  occupation  upon  another  as 
well  as  of  individuals  upon  each  other. 

Protection   Reduces    Prices. 

He  even  goes  into  some  of  the  phases 
of  the  practical  operation  of  Protective 
duties  in  their  effect  on  prices,  and 
points  out  the  distinction  in  this  re- 
spect between  duties  on  articles  not 
produced  in  the  United  States  and  on 
domestic  production.  As  to  the  later, 
he  says: 

"But  if  a  duty  amounting  to  full  Pro- 
tection be  levied  upon  an  article  which 
can  be  produced  here  with  as  little 
labor  as  elsewhere,  as  iron,  that  article 
Will  ultimately  and  at  no  distant  day, 
in  consequence  of  such  duty,  be  sold  to 
our  people  cheaper  than  before,  at  least, 
by  the  amount  of  the  cost  of  carrying 
it   from   abroad." 

The  introductory  paragraph  shows 
that  Lincoln  based  this  statement  upon 
the  experience  of  the  American  people 
Under  the  several  Tariff  laws  from  1816 
down  to  the  time  he  wrote,  that  he  con- 
sidered only  Protected  articles;  that  the 
period  covered  was  a  period  of  peace 
and  sufficiently  long  to  furnish  a  fair 
average  under  all  other  causes  operat- 
ingr    on    prices. 

"When  the  Greatest  Progress  Was  Made. 

Mr.  Lincoln  chose  a  period  of  peace 
for  consideration,  extending  from  the 
close  of  the  War  of  1812,  to  the  time  he 
wrote.  Although  certain  manufactures 
had  their  beginning  under  the  Tariff 
laws  enacted  prior  to  the  War  of  1812, 
and  others  were  brought  into  existence 
during  that  struggle,  the  period  covered 
by  him  embraces  the  years  when  the 
greatest  progress  was  made  in  the  es- 
tablishment and  growth  of  the  manu- 
factures of  the  United  States.  In  1789 
we  were  a  nation  of  farmers  from 
Maine   to   Florida.       In    1850    the    census 


of  the  United  States  of  manufacturing: 
industries  sliowed  an  investment  of  cap- 
ital of  $533,245,000;  raw  materials 
worked  up  $555,000,000;  male  hands  em- 
ployed, 731,137;  female  hands  employed, 
225,922;  wages  paid,  $236,755,000;  value 
of  the  production,  $1,019,106,616;  86  per 
cent,  of  which  was  produced  in  the  fif- 
teen free  States.  The  manufactures 
consisted  of  the  coarser  and  more  ordi- 
nary sorts  of  commodities  in  common 
use  among  the  people,  and  were  as  fol- 
lov7s:  Woolens,  carpets,  hosiery,  cotton 
goods,  glass,  leather  and  manufactures 
of  leather;  boots  and  shoes,  paper,  hats, 
cabinet  ware,  furniture,  manufactures 
from  flax  and  hemp,  silk,  sugar,  tobacco, 
candles,  lead,  red  and  white  lead,  but- 
tons, certain  chemicals,  the  production 
of  pig  and  bar  iron,  castings,  a  great 
variety  of  manufactures  from  iron,  and 
a  great  variety  of  other  articles  of  less 
importance. 

Confirmatory     History     On     Decline     In 
Prices. 

It  is  a  significant  fact  in  support  of 
Mr.  Lincoln's  statement  that  the  great 
decline  in  prices  of  commodities  took 
place  in  those  articles  which  were  made 
in  the  United  States,  while  there  was  a 
very  slight  decline  in  the  prices  of  those 
articles  imported,  which  met  with  no 
competition  in  the  American  market. 
Ex-Governor  Davis,  of  Massachusetts, 
referring  to  this  fact  in  his  speech  be- 
fore Congress,  in  1828,  said: 

"Another  circumstances  which  has  a 
strong  bearing  upon  this  ought  also  to 
be  mentioned.  Goods  which  have  been 
manufactured  here  have  experienced  a 
greater  decline  than  those  which  we 
have   not  manufactured. 

"Coarse  and  middling  cassimers  have 
fallen  half,  while  the  finest  qualities 
have  declined  no  more  than  12 1^  per 
cent.  These  facts  show  that  the  foreign 
supplies  of  cloths  have  been  forced  into 
our  market,  and  the  effect  has  been  to 
sink  the  price  both  here  and  in  Eng- 
land. The  progress  of  this  decline  has 
kept  pace  very  accurately  with  the  in- 
crease of  business  in  this  country.  This 
struggle  for  the  market  could  produce 
no  other  effect.  The  principal  depres- 
sion is  occasioned  by  our  competition 
with  England." 

Savings  Through  Protection. 

Mr.  Young,  from  Connecticut,  in  his 
speech  before  Congress  the  same  year 
said: 

"We  know  that  coarse  cotton  cloths 
below  about  No,  25  have  been  fairly 
Protected;  those  from  that  to  about  No. 
45  or  50  partially  Protected;  those  above 
that  very  slightly,  including  what  are 
termed,  in  our  Tariff,  cambrics,  muslins, 
etc.  And  what  has  been  the  result? 
While  the  fine  cottons,  which  include  a 
greater  proportion  of  labor,  and  should 
have  fallen  lower,  have  only  fallen  from 
15  to  25  per  cent,   (not  so  much  as  your 


16 


agricultural  produce  in  the  same  time), 
coarse  cotton  goods  have  fallen  from  50 
to  75  per  cent.  This  case  I  have  put  for 
the  double  purpose  of  exemplifying  the 
effects  of  our  Protection  and  competi- 
tion in  those  articles  we  manufacture, 
and  of  showing  the  use  the  foreigner 
makes  of  our  market,  so  far  as  he  sup- 
plies and  controls  it. 

"I  will  give  another  instance,  exem- 
plifying the  same  effects,  more  palpable 
and  decisive,  probably.  I  allude  to 
common  crockery  ware  and  common 
glassware,  both  imported  and  sold  by 
the  same  class  of  merchants  generally. 
Glass  and  glassware,  we  know,  have 
received  *  such  Protection  as  to  excite 
powerful  competition.  While  the  man- 
ufacture of  common  enameled  and  print- 
ed wares  had  as  yet  scarcely  been  at- 
tempted in  this  country,  some  brown 
wares  and  imitation  Delphian  wares 
have  been  common,  and  some  new  man- 
ufactories of  porcelain  are  lately  prom- 
ising success.  But  the  common  Liver- 
pool ware,  as  it  is  often  called,  has  at 
all  times  occupied,  commanded  and  con- 
trolled our  market,  and  regulated  its 
prices.  And  what  has  been  the  result? 
While  one  has  hardly  fallen  15  per  cent., 
the  other  has,  in  many  branches  of  it, 
fallen  75  per  cent.  And  the  opposers 
of  this  system,  who  complained  so  much 
of  its  injustice  and  oppression,  are  now 
actually  saving  25  per  cent,  or  more  on 
their  glasswares  in  consequence  of  this 
Protection,  and  losing  the  same  amount 
on  their  earthen  wares  for  the  want  of 
such  Protection. 

"Our  coarse  cottons  are  sucessfully 
competing  with  those  of  British  manu- 
facture. The  greater  mystery  of  our 
competition  in  foreign  markets  is  that 
the  English  manufacturer  cannot,  and 
if  he  could,  he  will  not  (where  he  can 
avoid  it)  sell  his  goods  at  our  present 
reduced  prices,  where  he  can  command 
the  market.  The  American  manufac- 
turer asks  no  better  business  than  to 
sell  his  goods  at  the  English  market 
price,  where  the  English  manufacturer 
and  merchant  have  the  trade." 

"How  is  it  with  the  Georgia  planter?" 
asked  Mr.  Wilde,  of  Georgia.  "He  sends 
a  cargo  of  cotton  and  receives  in  return 
a  cargo  of  cottons,  woolens  and  hard- 
ware. But  a  duty  is  levied  on  the 
homeward  cargo  in  the  United  States  of 
40  per  cent.  If  he  could  contrive  to  throw 
this  duty  on  the  consumer,  he  might  be 
able  to  get  a  fair  remuneration  for  his 
slave  labor,  but  he  cannot.  He  is  met  in 
the  United  States  by  the  domestic  manu- 
facturer. If  he  were  to  add  the  duty  to 
the  price  of  his  goods  the  domestic  man- 
ufacturer would  undersell  him. 

A  Few  Instances  Mentioned. 

A  few  instances  of  the  decline  of  tlie 
prices  of  cotton  goods  may  be  cited: 
Merrimac  prints,  which  in  1855  averaged 
'25.07  cents  per  yard  at  the  factory,  de- 
clined  to    16    cents   in    1830,    12    cents    in 


17 


1840,  10.90  cents  In  1845,  and  9.24  cents 
in  1S50.  The  cotton  fabrics  made  at 
Waltham,  staple  articles,  were  year  by 
year  reduced  in  price  per  yard  as  fol- 
lows: 1816,  30  cents  per  yard;  1819,  21 
cents;  1826,  13  cents;  1829,  SV2  cents,  and 
in  1843,  had  declined  to  6^  cents  per 
yard.  The  price  of  cotton  machinery  fell 
320  per  cent,  from  1810  to  1830,  all 
brought  about  by  the  establishment  of 
manufactories  in  the  United  States,  Which 
came  into  competition  with  the  foreign 
manufactures  and  forced  down  the  price 
of  foreign  manufactures,  and  this  con- 
tinued to  reduce  the  price  more  and  mord 
as  the  industries  were  developed  and  ex- 
tended. 

This  was  true  of  all  of  the  industries 
which  were  established  in  the  United 
States  during  this  period  under  Protec- 
tion high  enough  to  secure  to  them  the 
American  market.  From  1818  to  1830 
the  price  of  bar  iron  was  reduced  at 
Pittsburg  from  $190  per  ton  to  $100  per 
ton;  boiler  iron  from  $350  per  ton  to 
$140  per  ton;  sheet  iron  from  $18.00  per 
hundredweight  to  $8.50;  hoop  iron  from 
$250  to  $120;  axes  from  $24  per  dozen  to 
$12  per  dozen;  brazier's  rods  in  1824  were 
imported  at  a  cost  of  $313  per  ton,  and 
in  1831  sold  for  $130.  In  1816  the  Amer- 
ican people  were  importing  nails  from 
Great  Britain  and  paying  16  cents  a 
pound,  and  a  duty  of  5  cents  a  pound 
was  imposed,  and  by  1830  the  entire 
American  market  was  being  supplied  at 
6»^   cents  a  pound. 

Lincoln    Opposed    to    Foreign    Trade    in 
Competing;  Commodities.     We  Sliould 
Supply  tlte  American  Marlset  with. 
Goods  Made  In  American  In- 
dustries by  American  Labor. 
"If      it      be      asked,"      says      Lincoln, 
"whether  l  would  destroy  all  commerce,  I 
answer  certainly  not.     I  would  continue 
it  where  it  is  necessary  and  discontinue 
it  where  it  is  not.     An  instance,  I  would 
continue   commerce   so   far  as   it   is   em- 
ployed in  bringing  us  coffee,  and  I  would 
discontinue   it   so   far   as   it   is   employed 
in  bringing  us  cotton  goods." 

Here  Lincoln  attacked  the  vitals  of 
Free-Trade.  The  traders  of  the  world, 
those  who  buy  in  one  country  to  sell  in 
another,  as  well  as  the  foreign  manu- 
facturer, never  objected  to  our  imposing 
duties  on  tea,  coffee,  spices,  and  those 
natural  products  the  like  of  which  can- 
not be  produced  at  home.  These  things 
we  must  have  and  will  have,  whether 
made  dutiable  or  not.  But  when  we  im- 
pose Protective  duties  on  cotton  goods, 
woolens,  manufactures  of  iron  and  other 
articles  for  the  purpose  of  causing  their 
production  at  home,  then  foreign  com- 
merce is  interfered  with,  and  a  great  hue 
and  cry  is  raised  that  Protection  "de- 
stroys commerce."  Importers  are  de- 
prived of  commissions,  foreign  manufac- 
turers of  profits,  ship  owners  of  freight 
rates,  bankers  of  discounts,  and  ex- 
change, and  the  marine   insurance  com- 


parties  of  premiums;  so  all  of  these  in- 
terests favor  the  sending  of  iron,  copper, 
lead,  cotton,  wool,  timber  and  all  of  the 
raw  materials  which  we  produce  across 
the  Atlantic  Ocean  to  be  there  manu- 
factured into  the  finished  products  which 
are  then  to  be  sold  to  us,  with  all  of  the 
profits  and  expenses  of  these  middlemen 
added  to  the  price.  These  same  great 
captains  of  foreign  commerce  also  desire 
that  the  raw  materials  of  all  countries  be 
also  shipped  to  the  great  manufacturing 
centers  of  the  Old  World  that  all  of  the 
manufacturing  be  done  there. 

"What  Lincoln  Called  ^'Useless  Labor." 

The  enormous  expense  of  transporting 
raw  materials  from  the  United  States  to 
foreign  countries  and  bringing  back  the 
finished  products,  which  Lincoln  calls 
"useless  labor,"  he  would  have  abolished 
by  excluding  the  foreigner  from  our  mar- 
ket and  forcing  the  manufacturing  to  be 
done  in  American  mills  by  American  la- 
bor, thereby  securing  to  American  labor 
and  capital  all  of  the  profits  and  com- 
pensation for  effecting  every  step  in  the 
process  of  production,  manufacture, 
transportation  and  marketing.  By  this 
means,  a  vast  home  trade  would  be  built 
up;  the  spendable  income  of  the  people 
multiplied;  the  country  flourish  and  grow 
by  industrial  effort,  and  the  people  be- 
come enriched  and  independent  by  re- 
taining among  themselves  the  fruits  of 
their  own  industry.  Useless  labor  would 
be  abolished  by  dispensing  with  needless 
transportation,  and  idleness  would 
be  abolished  by  keeping  the  American 
people  employed.  Lincoln  well  under- 
stood that  the  true  source  of  a  nation's 
wealth  and  power  was  the  development 
and  utilization  of  its  own  natural  re- 
sources, its  land,  its  mines,  the  machin- 
ery, the  waterpowers,  and  the  full  em- 
ployment of  its  labor,  and  the  conduct  of 
all  of  its  business  by  its  own  people. 

home:  trade  is  more  valuable  to 
a  nation  than  foreign  trade. 

Lincoln's  Famous  Epigram. 

The  editor  of  the  Harvard  Independent 
(Harvard,  Illinois),  on  June  9,  1894,  said: 

"Abraham  Lincoln's  first  speech  on  the 
Tariff  question  was  short  and  to  the 
point.  He  said  that  he  did  not  pretend 
to  be  learned  in  political  economy,  but 
he  thought  he  knew  enough  to  know 
that  'when  an  American  paid  Twenty 
Dollars  for  steel  to  an  English  manufac- 
turer, America  had  the  steel  and  Eng- 
land had  the  Twenty  Dollars.  But  when 
he  paid  Twenty  Dollars  for  steel  to  an 
American  manufacturer,  America  had 
both  the  steel  and  the  Twenty  Dollars.' 
That  was  the  sum  and  substance  of  the 
Tariff  question  as  he  viewed  it." 

Adam  Smith  In   1776. 

We  may  write  pages  on  the  subject; 
we  may  quote  Adam  Smith,  Sir  John 
Barnard    Byles,    the    writings    of    Henry 


C.  Carey,  or  the  speeches  of  Thomas  B. 
Reed,  and  prove  the  proposition  by  argu- 
ments and  statistics,  yet  for  a  simple, 
plain  and  convincing  statement  of  the 
great  fact,  we  must  revert  to  Lincoln's 
epigram.  The  epigram  had  been  quoted 
so  many  times  without  its  authenticity 
having  been  questioned,  that  the  writer 
used  it  in  "The  Industrial  Development 
of  Nations,"  (published  in  1912),  firmly 
believing  that  it  was  genuine  and  with- 
out the  slightest  intimation  from  any 
source  to  the  contrary.  It  appears  now 
that  doubt  has  been  thrown  on  its  genu- 
ineness, yet  it  has  not  been  shown  that 
these  words  were  ever  uttered  by  any 
person  other  than  Abraham  .Lincoln, 
Both  Professor  F.  W.  Taussig  and  Mr.  D. 
M.  Matteson  of  Harvard  University  made 
a  great  endeavor  to  trace  the  phrase  to 
its  origin  and  discover  evidence  to  es- 
tablish that  it  was  not  uttered  by  Lin- 
coln. Prof.  Taussig  in  an  article  en- 
titled "Abraham  Lincoln  on  the  Tariff — a 
Myth,"  published  in  the  Quarterly  Jour- 
nal of  Economics,  August  19,  1914, 
says  that  "the  first  mention  which  we 
have  found  is  in  the  American  Econo- 
mist." He  then  states  that  the  American 
Economist  on  June  29,  1894,  published 
it  as  having  been  copied  from  the  How- 
ard Independent  of  Howard,  Illinois,  on 
June  9,  1894.  It  liaving  been  ascertained 
that  there  was  no  such  paper  as  "The 
Howard  Independent"  and  being  unable 
to  find  a  reference  to  it  in  any  of  the 
published  works  on  Lincoln,  it  was  con- 
cluded by  Prof.  Taussig  that  the  whole 
story  was  "a  myth."  Upon  further  in- 
vestigation, however,  he  discovered  that 
the  word  "Howard"  as  used  in  the  Ameri- 
can Economist  was  a  misprint,  and  that 
the  article  first  appeared  in  the  Harvard 
Independent  of  Harvard,  Illinois,  on  June 
9,  1894.  (See  "Lincoln  on  the  Tariff — a 
Sequel"  by  F.  W.  Taussig.  Quarterly 
Journal  of  Economics,  February,  1915). 

It  should  be  noted,  however,  that  in 
these  articles  written  by  Prof.  Taussig, 
and  in  the  criticisms  made  by  others  on 
the  use  which  was  being  made  of  the 
epigram  by  attributing  it  to  Abraham 
Lincoln,  no  question  was  raised  but  that 
Lincoln  was  in  fact  a  Protectionist,  it 
being  contended  simply  that  sufl[icient 
proof  has  not  been  found  to  justify  a 
claim  that  Abraham  Lincoln  ever  uttered 
the  words  attributed  to  him.  The  writer 
of  this  article  made  an  investigation  of 
the  subject  to  ascertain  who  wrote  the 
editorial  for  the  Harvard  Independent  of 
June  9,  1894.  He  visited  the  village  of 
Harvard  (McHenry  County),  Illinois, 
late  in  January,  1916;  called  at  the  print- 
ing office  and  interviewed  Mr.  M.  J.  Em- 
erson, the  present  editor  and  proprietor 
of  the  paper.  In  the  printing  office  he  saw 
a  copy  of  the  Independent  which  con- 
tained the  editorial,  and  ascertained  that 
the  article  in  question  was  written  by 
Otis  S.  Eastman,  deceased,  and  later 
received  from  Mr.  Emerson  a  letter,  of 
which  the  following  is  a  copy: 


18 


"Established   1866, 
"Hai'vard    Independent. 
"M.  J,  Emerson,  Editor  and  Proprietor. 
"Harvard,  Illinois,  March   3,   1916. 

"Hon,  George  B.  Curtiss,  Binghamton, 
New  York.  My  dear  Mr.  Curtiss:  Am 
sending  under  separate  cover  a  copy  of 
the  Harvard  Independent  of  May  27,  1897, 
containing  the  obituary  notice  of  Mr. 
Otis  S.   Eastman. 

"I  was  personally  acquainted  with  said 
Mr,  Eastman  for  a  period  of  twenty  years. 
He  was  appointed  my  legal  guardian  in 
July,  1888.  I  have  positive  knowledge 
of  the  fact  that  he  was  the  editor  of  the 
Harvard  Independent  in  June,  1894;  that 
he  was  the  sole  editor  of  said  paper  at 
that  time,  and  that  he  wrote  the  edi- 
torial published  therein  on  June  9,  1894, 
of  which  the  following  is  an  exact  copy: 

"  'Abraham  Lincoln's  first  speech  on  the 
Tariff  question  was  short  and  to  the 
point.  He  said  that  he  did  not  pretend 
to  be  learned  in  political  economy,  but 
he  thought  that  he  knew  enough  to  know 
that  "when  an  American  paid  twenty  dol- 
lars for  steel  to  an  English  manufactur- 
er, America  had  the  steel  and  England 
had  the  twenty  dollars.  But  when  he 
paid  twenty  dollars  for  steel  to  an  Amer- 
ican manufacturer,  America  had  both  the 
steel  and  the  twenty  dollars,"  That  was 
the  sum  and  substance  of  the  Tariff 
question  as  he  viewed  it.' 

"Mr.  Eastman  was  a  great  student  of 
the  Tariff  question  and  of  politics  and 
was  a  very  learned  and  capable  man.  ,He 
was  a  lifelong  Republican  and  an  en- 
thusiastic Protectionist. 

"Mr.  Eastman  died  at  Harvard,  Mc- 
Henry  County,  Illinois,  on  May  23,  1897. 

"Trusting  that  the  above  information 
will  be  of  some  use  to  you,  and  assuring 
you  that  if  I  can  be  of  any  further  serv- 
ice to  you  in  this  matter,  please  have 
no  hesitancy  in  advising  me,  and  I  will 
endeavor  to  attend  to  the  same  with 
more  promptness  than  I  did  in  this  one. 

"With  kindest  regards,  and  best  wishes 
for  the  successful  completion  of  your 
wdrk  on  the  Tariff,  I  beg  to  remain. 
Yours  very  truly, 

"M.  J.  EMERSON." 

tn  the  above  letter  we  have  conclusive 
proof  that  the  editorial  containing  the 
epigram  was  written  by  Otis  S.  Eastman, 
"a  great  student  of  the  Tariff  question 
and  of  politics  and  a  very  learned  and 
capable  man." 

"Who,  Then,  Was  Otis  S.  Bastman? 

Who,  then,  was  Otis  S.  Eastman,  who 
made  this  important  statement  of  words 
uttered  by  Abraham  Lincoln?  Upon  the 
decease  of  Mr.  Eastman,  which  occurred 
on  May  23,  1897,  the  Harvard  Independ- 
ent on  the  following  Thursday,  May  27, 
published  the  following  obituary  account 
of  his  life  and  character: 

"Otis  S.  Eastman  Passed  Away. 
"An   Honored   Career, 
"Well  Known  Newspaper  Man  and  Form- 
er Editor  of  the  Independent. 


"Otis  S.  Eastman  died  at  his  home  in 
this  city  last  Sunday  morning,  after  a 
lingering  illness  of  over  two  years,  aged 
64  years. 

"The  deceased  was  born  in  Benton, 
N.  H„  Feb.  10,  1833,  and  moved  to  •Man- 
chester, that  State,  in  March,  1845,  grad- 
uating from  the  High  School  in  1850.  At 
the  age  of  17  years  he  entered  the  Union- 
Democrat  office  in  Manchester  and  learn- 
ed the  printer's  trade.  He  worked  in  the 
Boston  Pathfinder  office  with  Charles  F. 
Brown  (Artemus  Ward)  and  B.  P.  Shill- 
aber  (Ma'am  Partington)  and  was  after- 
ward employed  on  the  Boston  daily 
papers.  He  learned  the  book  and  press 
department  in  the  book  office  of  Allen  & 
Farnham  in  Cambridge,  Mass.,  and  had 
charge  of  the  press  department  of  Thurs- 
ton &  Torrey  in  Boston,  where  Ticknor, 
Fields  &  Co.  had  their  printing  done.  He 
went  to  New  York  City  in  1854,  having 
charge  of  Holman  &  Gray's  press  depart- 
ment of  Putnam's  Magazine.  Later  he 
returned  to  Boston  and  had  charge  of  the 
Franklin  Printing  House  from  1861  to 
1865,  printing  the  Atlantic  Monthly.  He 
came  West  in  1866,  working  the  year 
previous  to  that  in  the  University  print- 
ing office  of  Cambridge,  Mass.  On  ar- 
riving in  Illinois  he  purchased  the  Fair- 
bury  Journal,  which  he  published  seven 
years,  returning  to  New  Hampshire  In 
1873.  A  year  later  he  established  the 
Journal  in  Suncook,  N,  H,,  which  he  pub- 
lished nine  years.  He  went  to  Washing- 
ton, D.  C,  in  1883  and  was  employed  in 
the  document  room  of  the  Government 
Printing  Office  until  Cleveland's  first 
election,  in  1884,  when  he  resigned.  From 
June,  1885,  to  October  of  the  same  year 
he  was  connected  with  the  Niles,  Michi- 
gan, Republican,  In  October,  1885,  he 
purchased  the  Harvard  Independent  of 
N.  B.  Burtch.  He  published  this  paper 
nearly  ten  years,  selling  out  to  the  pres- 
ent firm  the  latter  part  of  August,  1895, 

"Mr.  Eastman  was  married  to  Rachel 
A.  Dimick  in  1855,  by  whom  he  had  two 
sons,  Charles  O.  and  Frederick  L.  The 
latter  died  in  Fairbury,  in  1873,  aged  12 
years,  Mrs,  Eastman  died  in  Manchester 
in  March,  1876,  and  Charles  passed  away 
in  the  same  city  five  years  later,  aged 
23  years. 

"The  deceased  was  married  to  Harriet 
M.  Miles  in  Manchester,  Nov.  10,  1885. 
His  wife  and  two  sons,  Otis  M.  and 
Jesse  C,  survive  him. 

"He  joined  the  Masonic  fraternity  in 
New  York  City  in  1855,  the  Royal  Arch 
Chapter  in  Fairbury,  111.,  in  1870,  and 
Trinity  Commandery,  Knights  Templar, 
in  Manchester,  in  1876. 

"Mr.  Eastman's  life  was  an  open  book, 
to  be  read  of  all  men.  He  was  a  staunch 
and  fearless  friend,  frank  and  manly  in 
his  every  act  and  expression.  He  scorned 
duplicity  in  any  form,  because  he  was 
the  soul  of  truthfulness,  and  was  wont 
to  visit  the  severest  condemnation  upon 
those  who  practiced  it  toward  himself  or 
his  friends.    Socially  he  was  of  the  most 


19 


kindly  nature,  and  while  keen  of  obser- 
vation, rarely  saw  anything  to  censure 
In  those  to  whom  he  had  given  his  con- 
fidence. His  friendship  once  given  he 
was  always  loth  to  believe  any  evil  of 
the  person  upon  whom  it  was  bestowed, 
and  hQ  never  withdrew  unless  under 
great  provocation  and  only  after  irre- 
fragible  proof  of  the  unworthiness  of 
the  object  of  it. 

"In  his  family  relations  Mr.  Eastman 
was  resplendent.  The  wealth  of  his  large 
heart  went  out  to  those  immediately  sur- 
rounding him  with  a  largesse  seldom 
equaled,  and  only  those  who  have  wit- 
nessed the  unaffected  manifestation  of 
affection  for  those  embraced  within  the 
charmed  circle  of  his  home  could  appre- 
ciate his  rare  nature.  They  were  all  in 
all  to  him.  In  their  presence  his  eyes 
beamed  with  love  and  his  voice  was  at- 
tuned to  the  sweetest  sympathy.  How- 
ever stern  and  unyielding  he  might  be 
to  others,  he  was  led  captive  by  his  wife 
and  children,  and  their  wishes  his  law. 
Death,  inexorable  death  has  bereft  his 
friends  and  family  of  one  who  was  very 
dear  to  them,  but  the  influence  of  his 
life  will  be  a  benediction  to  all  of  them, 
and  his  memory  one  of  their  richest 
blessings. 

Statement   Was    Not    Fabricated. 

The  high  character  of  Mr.  Eastman  at 
once  acquits  him  of  any  suspicion  of 
having  fabricated  the  statement,  or  pub- 
lished it  without  evidence  which  justi- 
fied him  in  believing  that  he  was  correct- 
ly quoting  Lincoln's  words.  It  should  be 
noted  that  for  six  years,  from  1866  to 
1873,  he  published  a  newspaper  at  Fair- 
bury,  Livingston  County,  Illinois,  which 
was  located  not  far  from  Springfield  and 
in  the  district  throughout  which  Lincoln 
made  many  speeches  early  in  his  career 
upon  the  Tariff  issue.  Mr.  Eastman  does 
not  say  that  the  words  were  uttered  in 
Lincoln's  "first  speech"  but  in  his  "first 
speech  on  the  Tariff."  It  is  a  well  known 
fact  that  the  anecdotes,  sayings  and  do- 
ings of  Abraham  Lincoln  were  quoted 
and  talked  about  by  the  people  of  Cen- 
tral Illinois  from  the  time  he  became 
President,  until  those  who  knew  him 
personally  or  had  heard  him  speak  pass- 
ed away.  In  fact  his  fame  has  grown 
and  spread  until  the  whole  civilized  world 
has  become  interested  in  his  life  and 
character.  The  fact  that  the  statement 
does  not  appear  in  any  of  the  written  or 
published  reports  of  his  speeches  and 
writings  does  not  militate  against  its 
genuineness,  for  but  very  few  of  the 
stump  speeches  of  Lincoln  or  Douglas  or 
Clay,  or  in  fact  any  of  the  Western 
statesmen  of  that  age  and  period,  were 
published.  This  utterance  was  probably 
handed  down  by  tradition  (as  many 
other  sayings  of  Lincoln  have  been),  and 
Mr.  Eastman  was  informed  of  it  by  some 
one  who  heard  Lincoln  say  it.  This, 
however,  is  to  be  said  of  it:  it  sounds 
like  Lincoln,  it  is  Lincolnian  in  style,  and 


in  this  respect  it  is  like  other  sayings 
of  the  man  which  have  come  down  to  us 
by  tradition.  Moreover,  the  epigram  is 
characteristic  of  the  great  emancipator; 
it  reads  like  one  of  his  statements  of  a 
great  truth  expressed  in  plain  and  sim- 
ple language.  Mr,  Bryan  said  of  Lin- 
coln: 

"He  was  a  master  of  the  power  of 
statement.  Few  have  equaled  him  in 
the  ability  to  strip  a  truth  of  surplus 
verbiage  and  present  it  in  its  naked 
strength.  He  could  state  a  question  so 
clearly  that  one  could  hardly  misunder- 
stand it,  when  he  wanted  to." 

Henry  Clay  embellished  his  great  ut- 
terances with  adjectives  and  beautiful 
words.  Webster's  great  expressions,  al- 
though many  of  them  were  short  and  toi 
the  point,  were  delivered  in  a  style  which 
was  characterized  as  Websterian,  and  so 
there  was  an  individuality  about  Lin- 
coln's epigrams  that  is  unmistakable. 
This  questioned  epigram,  if  submitted 
to  one  hundred  students  of  Lincoln's  style 
for  decision  as  to  the  name  of  the  author, 
would  almost  unanimously  at  once  say 
Lincoln.  Moreover,  Lincoln  had  made  a 
profound  study,  as  is  shown  in  "Frag- 
ments of  Tariff  Discussion,"  of  the  very 
phase  of  the  Tariff  question  elucidated 
by  the  epigram.  He  had  considered  fully 
the  value  to  a  nation  of  buying  at  home 
instead  ot  buying  abroad.  Hence  it  is 
fair  to  conclude  that  until  it  is  estab- 
lished by  competent  evidence  that  the 
epigram  was  uttered  by  some  person 
other  than  Lincoln,  we  shall  believe  that 
Mr.  Eastman's  statement  is  true. 

The  idea  embodied  in  this  epigram  is 
not  new.  The  great  fact  which  it  con- 
tains was  pointed  out  by  Adam  Smith  In 
his  lectures  late  in  the  Eighteenth  Cen- 
tury. It  is  immaterial  in  illustrating  the 
fact,  whether  one  uses  "money"  in  ex- 
change for  goods,  or  whether  it  is  as- 
sumed that  in  trade  indirectly  goods  are 
paid  for  with  goods.  For  if  an  American 
exchanges  twenty  dollars'  worth  of  wheat 
with  an  English  manufacturer  for  twetjty 
dollars'  worth  of  manufactured  goods, 
England  has  the  wheat  and  America  has 
the  goods,  but  when  he  exchanges  the 
twenty  dollars'  worth  of  wheat  with  a 
Massachusetts  manufacturer  for  twenty 
dollars'  worth  of  woolen  goods,  America 
has  both  the  wheat  and  the  woolen  goods. 
Adam  Smith  carried  the  argument  to  the 
point  of  showing  how  home  exchanges 
are  most  beneficial  to  a  nation.  It  is  an 
old  Protectionist  argument  that  by  a 
system  of  home  trade  under  Protection, 
the  United  States  would  become  a  world 
within  itself,  land  as  the  fruits  of  the  in- 
dustry of  the  people  were  kept  at  home, 
they  would  constantly  multiply  and  grow, 
and  ultimately  the  people  of  the  United 
States  would  have  a  larger  spendable 
income  each  year  than  the  people  of  any 
nation  practicing  Free-Trade.  In  discuss- 
ing the  proposition  in  his  "Wealth  of  Na- 
tions," Adam  Smith  said  (Wealth  of  Na- 
tions,  Book   II,   Chapter   5): 


20 


"The  capital  which  is  employed  in 
purchasing-  in  one  part  of  the  country 
in  order  to  sell  in  another  the  produce 
of  the  industry  of  that  country,  gener- 
ally replaces  by  such  operation  two 
distinct  capitals  that  had  both  been 
employed  in  the  agriculture  or  manu- 
facture of  that  country,  and  thereby 
enables  them  to  continue  that  employ- 
ment. When  both  are  the  produce  of 
domestic  industry,  it  necess,arily  re- 
places, by  every  such  operation,  two 
distinct  capitals,  which  had  both  been 
employed  in  supporting  productive 
labor,  and  thereby  enables  them  to 
continue     that     support.  The     capital 

which  sends  Scotch  manufacturers  to 
London,  and  brings  back  English 
manufacturers  and  corn  to  Edinburg, 
necessarily  replaces,  by  every  such 
operation,  two  British  capitals,  which 
had  both  been  employed  in  the  agricul- 
ture   or    manufactures   of   Great   Britain. 

"The  capital  employed  in  purchasing 
foreign  goods  for  home  consuruntion, 
when  this  purchase  is  made  with  the 
product  of  domestic  industry,  replaces, 
too,  by  every  s-uch  operation,  two  dis- 
tinct capitals,  but  one  of  them  only  is 
employed  in  supporting  domestic  in- 
dustry. The  capital  which  sends  Brit- 
ish goods  to  Portugal,  and  brings  back 
Portuguese  goods  to  Great  Britain,  re- 
places by  every  such  operation  only  one 
British  capital.  The  other  is  a  Portu- 
guese one.  Though  the  returns,  there- 
fore, of  the  foreign  trade  of  consump- 
tion should  be  as  quick  as  those  of  the 
home  trade,  the  capital  employed  in  it 
will  give  but  one-half  the  encourage- 
ment to  the  industry  or  productive  labor 
of  the  country. 

"A  capital,  therefore,  employed,  in  the 
home  trade,  will  sometimes  make  twelve 
operations,  or  be  sent  out  and  returned 
twelve  times,  before  a  capital  employed 
in  the  foreign  trade  of  consumption  has 
made  one.  If  the  capitals  are  equal, 
therefore,  the  one  will  give  four-and- 
twenty  times  more  encouragement  and 
support  to  the  industry  of  the  country 
than  the  other." 

Sir  John  Bernard  Byles,  in  1849. 

The  economic  principle  which  forms 
the  basis  of  the  advantage  derived  from 
the  policy  of  Protection  stated  by  Adam 
Smith,  was  elucidated  and  developed  by 
Sir  John  Barnard  Byles,  in  1849,  in  the 
following  able  and  comprehensive  dis- 
cussion: 

"What  does  Adam  Smith  mean  by  the 
expression,  'replace  capital'?  It  is  an 
expression  not  to  be  passed  over  in 
haste,  but  well  deserving  to  be  atten- 
tively  considered   and   analyzed. 

"He  means  that  the  whole  value  of  a 
commodity  is  spent  in  its  production, 
and  yet  reappears  in  the  shape  of  the 
new  product.  That  in  its  production 
there  is  an  expenditure  not  of  the  profit 
merely,  but  of  the  entire  value,  and  that 
the  whole  of  that  expenditure  not  only 


ai 


maintains  landlords,  tenants,  tradesmen 
and  work  people,  but  furnishes  an  effec- 
tive demand  and  market  for  other  pro- 
ductions. He  means  that  the  clear  gain, 
the  spenda.ble  revenue,  the  net  income  of 
the  producing  nation,  is  increased  by 
the  amount  of  the  entire  value  of 
the  domestic  product,  and  that  the 
nation  is  so  much  the  richer;  for  while 
producing,  it  spends  the  entire  gross 
value,  and,  nevertheless,  after  it  has  pro- 
duced, it  yet  has  the  entire  gross  value 
left  in  another  shape. 

"He  then  goes  on  and  says  that  if 
with  British  commodities  you  purchase 
British  commodities  you  replace  two 
British  capitals;  but  if  with  British  com- 
modities you  purchase  foreign  commod- 
ities you  replace  only  one  British  cap- 
ital. That  is  to  say,  you  might  have 
had  the  entire  gross  value  of  two  in- 
dustries to  spend,  and  thereby  also  to 
create  and  sustain  markets;  but  you  are 
content  to  have  the  value  and  the  mar- 
ket of  one  industry  alone. 

"These  observations  of  Adam  Smith, 
though  demonstrably  true,  derive  addi- 
tional weight  from  the  quarter  from 
which  they  come.  They  are  the  admis- 
sions of  the  founder  of  the  existing 
school  of  political  econoinists.  on  a  point 
of  vital  importance,  so  vital  that  it 
affects  the  entire  theory  of  Free-Trade. 

"At  the  risk,  therefore,  of  being 
charged  with  prolixity  and  repetition,  I 
Venture  to  invite  the  candid  and  serious 
attention  of  the  reader  to  a  further  con- 
sideration of  this  problem. 

"The  entire  price  or  gross  value  of 
every  home  made  article  constitutes  net 
gain,  net  revenue,  net  income  to  British 
subjects.  Not  a  portion  of  the  value, 
but  the  whole  value,  is  resolvable  into 
net  gain,  income  or  revenue  maintaining 
British  families,  and  creating  or  sus- 
taining British  markets.  Purchase 
British  articles  with  British  articles  and 
you  create  two  such  aggregate  values 
and  two  such  markets  for  British  in- 
dustry, 

"Change  your  policy — purchase  foreign 
articles  with  British  articles — and  you 
now  create  only  one  value  for  your  own 
benefit  instead  of  creating  two,  and  only 
one  market  for  British  industry  instead 
of  two.  You  lose  by  the  change  of 
policy  the  power  of  spending  the  entire 
value  of  one  industry,  which  you  might 
have  had,  as  well  as  the  other,  and  you 
lose  a  market  for  British  industry  to  the 
full  extent  of  the  expenditure  of  that 
superseded  industry. 

"A  small  difference  in  price  may  cause 
the  loss,  but  will  not  compensate  the 
nation  for  that  loss.  For  example,  sup- 
pose England  can  produce  an  article  for 
100  pounds  and  can  import  it  for  99 
pounds.  By  importing  it  instead  of  pro- 
ducing it  she  gains  1  pound;  but  though 
she  pay  for  it  with  her  own  manufac- 
tures, she  loses  (not,  indeed,  by  the  ex- 
change itself,  but  by  the  collapse  of  the 
suspended      industry)      100     pounds     of 


wealth    which    she    might    have    had    to 

spend  by  creating-  the  value  at  home; 
that  is  to  say,  on  the  balance  she  loses 
99  pounds  which  she  might  have  had  in 
addition  by  producing-  both  commodities 
at  home. 

"Nor  can  it  be  said  that  what  the  pro- 
ducer loses  the  consumer  g-ains.  The 
producer  loses  100  pounds,  the  consumer 
gains  1  pound.  The  nation,  moreover, 
loses  the  markets  which  that  superseded 
industry  supported.' 

Elqnal  Amounts  of  ludiistry. 

The  relative  value  to  a  nation  of  do- 
mestic trade  and  foreign  trade  has  been 
one  of  the  chief  points  in  controversy 
between  Protectionists  and  Free-Traders 
ever  since  opposition  to  Protection  was 
introduced.  It  occupied  a  prominent 
place  in  the  debates  on  the  subject  be- 
tween 1830  and  1846,  when  Lincoln  was 
giving  so  much  attention  to  the  Tariff 
question.  The  Free-Traders,  at  a  con- 
vention held  in  Philadelphia  in  1831,  con- 
tended in  their  resolutions  adopted,  that 
the  exchange  of  domestic  goods  for  for- 
eign goods  (in  foreign  commerce)  pro- 
motes or  puts  in  motion  two  equal 
amounts  of  industry,  one  foreign  and  the 
other  domestic.  The  Protectionists,  in 
their  memorial  issued  the  same  year,  re- 
plying to  the  declaration  of  the  Free- 
Trade  convention,  asserted  that  even  if 
this  be  true,  and  if  all  foreign  trade  was 
•carried  on  by  an  exchange  of  commodi- 
ties, still  it  is  not  worth  more  than  one- 
half  as  much  to  a  nation  as  domestic  ex- 
changes or  home  trade,  for  domestic  or 
internal  trade  also  promotes,  or  puts  in 
motion,  two  equal  amounts  of  industry, 
both  domestic,  and  that  it  employs,  of 
course,  twice  as  much  domestic  capital 
and  labor  as  the  other. 

Ninety  Per  Cent.  Is  Labor. 

It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  direct- 
ly or  indirectly  90  per  cent,  of  the  value 
of  every  commodity  produced,  represents 
labor  distributed  among  producers  from 
the  first  human  effort  until  the  product 
is  finished.  In  its  distribution  a  com- 
modity is  packed,  shipped,  handled,  and 
sold  by  labor  which  must  be  rewarded 
for  its  efforts  at  every  step  that  is  taken 
until  it  is  delivered  to  the  consumer. 
And  labor  does  not  stop  here.  Effort  is 
required  to  cook  and  prepare  food  for 
the  table.  To  trace  to  the  bottom  the 
cost  price  of  every  commodity,  to  the 
consumer,  we  find  that  it  constitutes  net 
spendable  income. 

This  great  economic  principle  goes  to 
the  root  of  the  controversy.  It  was  by 
the  exchange  of  the  produce  of  the 
American  farm  for  domestic  manufac- 
tures that  the  American  people  had  accu- 
mulated their  wealth  and  reached  the 
stage  of  development  which  they  en- 
joyed. It  was  by  such  internal  trade 
that  the  State  of  Massachusetts  alone,  in 
1840,  consumed  of  the  food  products  and 
raw  materials  of  other  States  an  amount 


22 


worth  $40,000,000.  Five  million  dollars' 
worth  of  raw  cotton,  produced  by  the 
State  of  South  Carolina,  exchanged  for 
$5,000,000  worth  of  manufactured  goods 
made  in  the  State  of  Virginia,  would 
have  added  $10,000,000  to  the  spendable 
incomes  of  the  people  of  the  two  States; 
but  $5,000,000  worth  of  cotton  exported 
to  England  and  exchanged  for  a  like 
value  of  manufactured  goods  made  there 
would  have  added  $5,000,000  to  the  spend- 
able income  of  South  Carolina  and  $5,- 
000,000  to  the  spendable  income  of  Eng- 
land. But  this  is  not  all.  England  by 
converting  the  $5,000,000  worth  of  cotton 
into  fabrics  would  have  increased  its 
value  fourfold  and  exported  it  to  other 
countries  for  $20,000,000.  The  wealth 
and  spendable  income  of  the  English 
people  would  have  been  increased  by 
$15,000,000;  besides,  her  merchants,  who 
imported  the  cotton  and  marketed  the 
fabrics,  would  have  received  commis- 
sions and  profits;  her  insvirance  com- 
panies would  have  assumed  the  risKs 
and  received  premiums;  further,  her 
ships  would  have  made  a  profit  by  the 
cost  of  carriage  both  ways.  Apply  this 
principle  to  all  the  productions  of  our 
country  and  we  find  the  great  under- 
lying cause  of  England's  commercial 
greatness  and  the  reasons  why  Ameri- 
cans should  have  fabricated  for  them- 
selves and  turned  the  profits  to  their 
own  account. 

Another  Great  Lesson. 

Moreover,  another  great  lesson  may  be 
drawn  from  the  above  example.  Had 
the  $5,000,000  worth  of  cotton  been  con- 
verted into  cloth  in  the  United  States  by 
the  two  operations,  the  spendable  in- 
come of  our  people  would  have  been  in- 
creased by  $20,000,000;  and  American 
merchants,  railroads  and  insurance  com- 
panies would  all  have  been  supported. 

A  nation  which  exports  raw  materials 
and  crude  products  to  a  distant  market, 
there  to  be  converted  i^lto  finished  pro- 
ductions by  the  addition  of  labor  and 
enterprise  of  foreigners,  subjects  the 
people  to  a  still  greater  loss.  Thomas  B. 
Reed,  in  his  great  speech  in  opposition 
to  the  Wilsoi  bill  on  February  1,  1894, 
illustrated  this  proposition  when  he  said: 

"Let  me  give  one  item,  and  the  figures 
shall  be  furnished  by  the  gentleman 
from  Alabama  (Mr.  Wheeler),  who  told 
me  in  your  presence  that  the  value  of 
all  the  cotton  raised  in  the  United  States 
was  only  $300,000,000,  while  the  finished 
product  of  that  cotton  was  $1,750,000,000. 
When  cotton  leaves  the  field  it  is  worth 
$300,000,000;  when  it  leaves  the  mill  it  is 
worth  six  times  as  much.  On  our  own 
cotton  crop  alone  we  might  in  time  make 
the  profits  on  a  billion  and  a  half  of 
manufactured  goods.  Nor  is  there  any- 
thing to  prevent  such  a  result  in  a  Pro- 
tective Tariff." 

IJncoln      Predicts      Di.saster      from      the 
Walker  Variflf  of  1846. 

In  the  concluding  paragraph  of  "Frag- 


ments  of  Tariff  Discussion,"  Mr.  Lincoln 
said: 

"The  abandonment  of  the  Protective 
policy  by  the  American  Government  must 
result  in  the  increase  of  both  useless 
labor  and  idleness,  and  so,  in  proportion, 
must  produce  want  and  ruin  among  the 
people." 

This  prediction  was  verified  in  1857, 
for,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  fol- 
lowing the  overthrow  of  Protection  by 
the  adoption  of  a  Free-Trade  Tariff  law 
in  1846,  many  causes  intervened  which 
operated  to  stimulate  trade  and  indus- 
try, the  system  broke  down  in  1857  and 
brought  upon  the  country  a  persistent 
and  widespread  period  of  hard  times 
which  continued  until  Protection  was 
restored  by  the  passage  of  the  Merrill 
Tariff  law  of  1861,  Gold  was  discovered 
in  California  in  1848,  and  from  that  time 
until  1860,  $651,250,000  of  gold  was  pro- 
duced from  its  mines.  Yet  it  did  not 
remain  in  the  country;  $406,519,000  was 
sent  abroad  to  settle  an  adverse  balance 
of  trade  of  $491,753,000  incurred  by  the 
purchase  of  foreign  manufactures.  At 
the  same  time  26,340  miles  of  railroads 
were  built  at  an  expenditure  of  $996,- 
025,860  for  labor  and  materials,  and 
50,000  miles  of  telegraph  lines  were 
built.  Steamships  at  this  time  were 
to  a  great  extent  substituted  for  sail- 
ing vessels;  yet  our  manufacturing  in- 
dustries did  not  thrive.  They  were 
checked  in  their  growth  and  finally  went 
down  under  the  pressure  of  foreign  com- 
petition, producing  idleness,  want  and 
ruin  among  the  people. 

Greatness  and  Youth  Combined. 

Lincoln  was  one  of  the  greatest  de- 
baters and  public  speakers  of  all  times. 
His  oratory,  like  that  of  Demosthenes, 
convinced  the  people,  moulded  and  crys- 
talized  public  opinion  and  arrested  the 
attG«Won  of  the  country,  not  so  much 
on  ttie  wan  as  on  the  subject  which  he 
discussed.  He  never  over-stated  the 
case,  but  always  spoke  and  wrote  with 
moderation,  eliminating  nonessentials. 
As  Jusserand,  the  P'rench  Ambassador, 
said  of  him,  "He  said  the  right  thing." 
He  was  always  a  master  of  his  subject. 
He  was  thoroughly  informed,  honest  and 
earnest.  His  great  purpose  was  always 
to  have  the  question  at  issue  settled 
right.  His  opinions  and  beliefs  deep- 
rooted,  sprang  from  a  thorough  knowl- 
edge of  the  facts  ascertained,  sifted,  dis- 
criminated, balanced  and  weighed  on  the 
scales  of  justice,  right  and  public  wel- 
fare. 

His  superior  genius,  strength  of  mind 
and  wisdom  were  recognized  by  his  asso- 
ciates long  before  he  became  a  national 
character.  His  faculty  for  sound  reas- 
oning and  correct  thought  seems  to  have 
been  a  part  of  him  from  his  youth.  There 
is  no  day  or  year  or  time  in  his  life 
which  can  be  pointed  out  when  it  may  be 
said  of  him  that  he  changed  his  views 
and    became    converted    to    this    or    that 


doctrine.  His  conception  of  sound  eco- 
nomic principles,  of  wise  public  policies 
and  great  moral  truths,  is  disclosed  by 
his  earliest  speeches  and  writings.  In 
1837,  when  he  was  28  years  of  age,  he 
signed  and  presented  a  protest  to  the 
Illinois  Legislature  which  declared  that 
he  believed  that  "the  institution  of  slav- 
ery is  founded  on  both  injustice  and  bad 
policy"  and  that  "the  Congress  of  the 
United  States  has  povrer  under  the  Con- 
stitution to  abolish  slavery  in  the  Dis- 
trict  of   Columbia." 

Tvro  Great  Principles. 

It  was  these  two  great  principles,  that 
slavery  was  wrong  and  that  Congress 
had  under  the  Constitution  the  exclusive 
power  to  abolish  or  prohibit  it  on  all 
waters  and  in  all  of  the  places  and  ter- 
ritories under  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
United  States,  and  to  prohibit  the  trade 
in  slaves  between  the  States  as  well  as 
with  foreign  countries,  so  early  an- 
nounced by  Mr.  Lincoln,  which  consti- 
tuted the  two  great  fundamental  prin- 
ciples upon  which  the  Republican  party 
nineteen  years  later  was  organized,  and 
the  triumph  of  which,  in  the  election  of 
Lincoln  in  1860,  precipitated  the  seces- 
sion of  the  Southern  States  and  culmi- 
nated in  the  abolition  of  slavery,  forever 
settling  the  question  that  we  are  a  na- 
tion and  not  a  confederation  of  sovereign 
States.  It  was  the  question  of  jurisdic- 
tion of  Congress  over  the  subject  under 
the  Constitution,  which  split  the  Demo- 
cratic party  in  1860  into  the  Northern 
and  Southern  wings,  led  respectively  by 
Douglas  and  Breckenridge.  The  pro- 
test was  presented  to  the  legislature 
the  saine  year  that  Lovejoy  was  mur- 
.dered  at  Alton  on  account  of  his  anti- 
slavery  views,  and  against  a  resolution 
of  the  legislature  condemning  anti- 
slavery  societies.  At  this  time  anti- 
slavery  doctrines  were  unpopular  in  Illi- 
nois. The  State  was  overwhelmingly 
Democratic.  Hence  Lincoln  started  in 
life  as  a  member  of  a  minority  party 
and  espoused  a  cause  and  political  doc- 
trines which  were  then  unpopular. 

The    Whigrs    Beaten    Out    On    the    Tariflf 
Q,nestion. 

In  October,  1859,  Lincoln  wrote  the  fol- 
lowing letter  to  :Dr.  Wallace: 

"Clinton,  October  11,  1859. 

"My  Dear  Sir:  I  am  here  just  now 
attending  court.  Yesterday  before  I  left 
Springfield,  your  brother,  Dr.  William  S. 
Wallace,  showed  me  a  letter  of  yours, 
in  which  you  kindly  mention  my  name, 
inquire  for  my  Tariff  views,  and  suggest 
the  propriety  of  my  writing  a  letter 
upon  the  subject.  I  was  an  old  Henry 
Clay-Tariff-Whig.  In  old  times  I  made 
more  speeches  on  that  subject  than  any 
other. 

"I  have  not  since  changed  my  views. 
T  believe  yet,  if  we  could  have  a  moder- 
ate, carefully  adjusted  Protective  Tariff, 
so  far  acquiesced  in  as  not  to  be  a  per- 


23 


petual  subject  of  political  strife,  sciuab- 
bles,  changes,  and  uncertainties,  it  would 
be  better  for  us.  Still  it  is  my  opinion 
that  just  now  the  revival  of  that  ques- 
tion will  not  advance  the  cause  itself 
or  the  man  who  revives  it. 

"I  have  not  thought  much  on  the  sub- 
ject recently,  but  my  general  impression 
is  that  the  necessity  for  a  Protective 
Tariff  will  ere  long  force  its  old  oppo- 
nents to  take  it  up;  and  then  its  old 
friends  can  join  in  and  establish  it  on  a 
more  firm  and  durable  basis.  We,  the 
old  Whigs,  have  been  entirely  beaten 
out  on  the  Tariff  question,  and  we  shall 
not  be  able  to  re-establish  the  policv 
until  the  absence  of  it  shall  have  dem- 
onstrated the  necessity  for  it  in  the 
minds  of  men  heretofore  opposed"  to  it. 
With  this  view,  I  should  prefer  to  not 
now  write  a  public  letter  on  the  sub- 
ject. I  therefore  wish  this  to  be  con- 
sidered confidential.  I  shall  be  very 
glad  to  receive  a  letter  from  you. 
Yours  truly,  A.  Lincoln." 

("Complete  Works  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln,"  Vol.  V.      Pages  256-257.) 

Yes,  the  Whig  Party  had  been  "beaten 
out  on  the  Tariff  question."  It  had  been 
beaten  out  on  the  "National  Bank,"  and 
it  had  been  beaten  out  on  the  question 
of  internal  improvements.  But  these 
great  public  policies  were  not  dead,  and 
Lincoln  had  not  lost  hope,  for  he  believed 
that  the  absence  of  Protection  would  in 
time  "demonstrate  the  necessity  for  it  in 
the  minds  of  men  heretofore  opposed  to 
it." 

The   Slavery  Controversy  Eliminated  the 
Tarijf    from    Political    Discussion. 

When  Lincoln  wrote  his  "Fragments  of 
Tariff  Discussion"  the  Mexican  War  was 
in  progress,  yet  he  evidently  believed  at 
that  time  that  the  Tariff  controversy  was 
not  settled.  But  questions  growing  out 
of  the  Mexican  War  suddenly  changed 
the  entire  course  of  political  discussion 
and  brought  the  conflict  over  slavery  to 
the  front  as  the  all-absorbing  topic  of 
debate.  All  other  questions,  the  Tariff, 
the  national  bank  and  the  policy  of  in- 
ternal improvements,  were  laid  aside  un- 
til the  Republican  party  took  control  of 
the  Government  in  ISGO.  Through  the 
Mexican  War  a  vast  domain  was  added 
to  our  territory.  The  triumph  of  our 
armies,  the  valor  of  our  soldiers  and  the 
glamor  of  military  achievement  added 
greatly  to  the  popular  prestige  and 
strength  of  the  Democratic  party.  Al- 
though Lewis  Cass,  its  candidate  for 
President,  was  defeated  in  1848,  and 
General  Taylor  elected  through  the  revolt 
of  the  Free  Soil  Democrats  led  by  Van 
Buren,  it  swept  the  country  in  the  elec- 
tions of  1852  and  1856.  The  great  com- 
promise of  1850,  which  "was  accepted  by 
so  many  as  a  settlement  of  the  slavery 
question,  brought  about  the  election  of 
Pierce  in  1852,  and  the  endorsement  of 
the  popular  sovereignty  doctrine  carried 
Buchanan  through  in  1856. 


J\o   Room   for   Tariff  Discussion. 

The  annexation  of  Texas  and  the  ex- 
tension of  slavery  territory  to  the  Pacific 
ocean,  the  defeat  of  the  Wilmot  Proviso 
in  1846,  the  passage  of  the  fugitive  slave 
law  in  1850,  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise  in  1854,  and  the  decision  in 
the  Dred  Scott  case  in  1857,  and  the 
avowed  purpose  of  the  slaveholders  to 
force  slavery  into  all  of  the  territories 
of  the  northwest,  aroused  the  people  of 
the  free  States  in  resistance  to  exten- 
sion and  in  defense  of  the  territory  dedi- 
cated to  freedom  in  1820.  The  discussion 
was  carried  into  the  churches,  schools 
and  the  homes;  the  old  political  parties 
were  disrupted;  the  anti-slavery  Whigs, 
uniting  with  the  Abolitionists  and  the 
Free  Soil  Democrats,  formed  the  Repub- 
lican party  in  1854  and  ran  Fremont  for 
President  in  1856. 

At  the  very  time  when  the  Tariff  act 
of  1857  was  before  Congress,  Kansas  was 
a  scene  of  conflict  and  bloodshed;  the 
whole  country  was  aroused  to  a  high 
pitch  of  excitement,  and  on  March  3, 
1.857,  the  day  that  this  act  was  signed  by 
the  President,  the  people  were  anxiously 
waiting  for  the  decision  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  in  the  Dred 
Scott  case,  which  was  made  public  three 
days  later.  The  Kansas  struggle,  which 
began  in  the  fall  of  1854,  had  grown 
more  threatefiing.  Emigrant  aid  socie- 
ties in  the  North  were  sending  anti- 
slavery  men  into  the  territory  to  make 
it  a  free  State,  and  from  over  the  Mis- 
souri border  pro-slavery  men  were  rush- 
ing in  to  force  the  adoption  of  a  slavery 
Constitution.  The  people  of  the  free 
States,  under  these  conditions  of  great 
political  excitement  and  threatened  civil 
war,  had  no  room  for  Tariff  discussion. 

Protection  was  simply  being  held  in 
abeyance  until  the  slavery  question  was 
settled. 

Tariff  Question  Must  Come  Up  Again. 

In  his  speech  at  New  Haven,  Connecti- 
cut, March  6,  1860,  Lincoln  said: 

"Mr.  President  and  Fellow  Citizens  of 
New  Haven:  If  the -l^epublican  party  of 
this  nation  shall  ever  have  the  National 
House  intrusted  to  its  keeping,  it  will  be 
the  duty  of  that  party  to  attend  to  all  the 
affairs  of  national  housekeeping.  What- 
ever matters  of  importance  may  come  up, 
whatever  difficulties  may  arise,  in  the 
way  of  its  administration  of  the  govern- 
ment, that  part3'-  will  then  have  to  attend 
to;  it  will  then  be  compelled  to  attend  to 
other  questions  besides  this  question 
which  now  assumes  an  overwhelming  im- 
portance— the  question  of  slavery.  It  is 
true  that  in  the  organization  of  the  Re- 
publican party  this  question  of  slavery 
was  more  important  than  any  other;  in- 
deed, so  much  more  important  has  it  be- 
come that  no  other  national  question  can 
even  get  a  hearing  just  at  present.  The 
old  question  of  Tariff — a  matter  that  will 
remain  one  of  the  chief  affairs  of  national 
housekeeping  to  all  time;  the  question  of 


24 


the  management  of  financial  affairs;  the 
question  of  the  disposition  of  the  public 
domain;  how  shall  it  be  managed  for  the 
purpose  of  getting-  it  well  settled,  and  of 
making  there  the  homes  of  a  free  and 
happy  people — these  will  remain  open 
and  require  attention  for  a  great  while 
yet,  and  these  questions  will  have  to  be 
attended  to  by  whatever  party  has  the 
control  of  the  government.  Yet  just  now 
they  cannot  even  obtain  a  hearing,  and  I 
do  not  purpose  to  detain  you  upon  these 
topics,  or  what  sort  of  hearing  they 
should  have  when  opportunity  shall  come. 
For  whether  we  will  or  not,  the  question 
of  slavery  is  the  question,  the  all-absorb- 
ing topic,  of  the  day." — ^(Complete  Works 
of  Abraham  Lincoln,"  Vol.  V.  Pages  339- 
340.) 

The  election  of  Abraham  T^incoln  and  the 
Return  to  Protection. 

The  slavery  question  was  regarded  by 
Lincoln  of  such  paramount  importance 
that  he  did  not  think  that  the  Tariff  ques- 
tion should  be  agitated  in  the  Chicago 
Convention.  To  Dr.  Edward  Wallace  he 
wrote  in  May,  1860: 

"Springfield,  Illinois,  May  12,  1860,  My 
Dear  Sir:  Your  brother.  Dr.  W.  S.  Wal- 
lace, shows  me  a  letter  of  yours  in  which 
you  request  him  to  inquire  if  you  may 
use  a  letter  of  mine  to  you  in  which  some- 
thing is  said  upon  the  Tariff  question.  I 
do  not  precisely  remember  what  I  did  say 
in  that  letter,  but  I  presume  I  said  noth- 
ing substantially  different  from  what  I 
shall  say  now. 

"In  the  days  of  Henry  Clay,  I  was  a 
Henry-Clay-Tariff  man,  and  my  views 
have  undergone  no  material  change  upon 
that  subject.  I  now  think  the  Tariff  ques- 
tion ought  not  to  be  agitated  in  the  Chi- 
cago convention,  but  that  all  should  be 
satisfied  on  that  point  with  a  presidential 
candidate  whose  antecedents  give  assur- 
ance that  he  would  neither  seek  to  force 
a  Tariff  law  by  executive  influence,  nor 
yet  to  arrest  a  reasonable  one  by  a  veto 
or  otherwise.  Just  such  a  candidate  I 
desire  shall  be  put  in  nomination,  I  really 
have  no  objection  to  these  views  being 
publicly  known,  but  I  do  wish  to  thrust 
no  letter  before  the  public  now  upon  any 
subject.  Save  me  from  the  appearance  of 
obtrusion,  and  I  do  not  care  who  sees  this 
or  my  former  letter.  Yours  very  truly, 
A.  Lincoln," 

("Complete  Works  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln," Vol.  VL     Pages  11-12.) 

Lincoln  was  evidently  fearful  that  to 
press  the  Tariff  question  to  the  front  as  a 
party  issue  might  alienate  voters  who 
were  opposed  to  slavery,  yet  had  not  been 
convinced  that  a  Protective  Tariff  was 
necessary  to  the  prosperity  of  the  coun- 
try. The  Tariff  had  not  been  discussed  in 
a  political  campaign  since  1844,  and  to 
undertake  to  educate  the  people  on  the 
subject  would  detract  from  the  all-im- 
portant work  of  eradicating  the  curse  of 
slavery.  But  there  was  a  strong  current 
of  sentiment  for  a  change  in  the  Tariff 


25 


taking  possession  of  the  minds  of  the  peo- 
ple. This  was  shown  in  the  October 
election  in  the  State  of  Pennsylvania, 
when  Andrew  G.  Curtin  was  elected 
Governor  in  a  campaign  largely  fought 
on  that  question.  When  the  delegates  to 
the  Republican  convention  met  at  Chi- 
cago, it  developed  that  a  strong  senti- 
ment prevailed  among  them  in  favor  of 
placing  the  party  before  the  country 
squarely  on  a  Protective  Tariff  platform 
and  a  Tariff  plank  drawn  by  Henry  C. 
Carey  was  adopted.  Lincoln  was  made 
the  candidate  and  victory  followed. 

When  Lincoln  passed  through  Pitts- 
burg on  his  journey  to  Washington  for 
inauguration,  he  spoke  briefly  on  the 
Tariff  as   follows: 

Address  at  Pittsburg:,  February  15,  1861. 

"It  is  often  said  that  the  Tariff  is  the 
specialty  of  Pennsylvania,  Assuming 
that  direct  taxation  is  not  to  be  adopted, 
the  Tariff  question  must  be  as  durable  as 
the  government  itself.  It  is  a  question  of 
national  housekeeping.  It  is  to  the  gov- 
ernment what  replenishing  the  meal-tub 
is  to  the  family.  .  Ever-varying  circum- 
stances will  require  frequent  modifica- 
tions as  to  the  amount  needed  and  the 
sources  of  supply.  So  far  there  is  little 
difference  of  opinion  among  the  people. 
It  is  as  to  whether,  and  how  far,  duties 
on  imports  shall  be  adjusted  to  favor 
home  production  in  the  home  market, 
that  controversy  begins.  One  party  in- 
sists that  such  adjustment  oppresses  one 
class  for  the  advantage  of  another;  while 
the  other  party  argues  that,  with  all  its 
incidents,  in  the  long  run  all  classes  are 
benefited.  In  the  Chicago  platform  there 
is  a  plank  upon  this  subject  which  should 
be  a  general  law  to  the  incoming  admin- 
istration. We  should  do  neither  more 
nor  less  than  we  gave  the  people  reason 
to  believe  we  would  when  they  gave  us 
their  votes.  Permit  me,  fellow-citizens, 
to  read  the  Tariff  plank  of  the  Chicago 
platform,  or  rather-have  it  read  in  your 
hearing  by  one  who  has  younger  eyes. 

"Mr.  Lincoln's  private  secretary  then 
read  Section  12  of  the  Chicago  platform, 
as  follows: 

"  'That  while  providing  revenue  for 
the  support  of  the  General  Government 
by  duties  upon  imports,  sound  policy  re- 
quires such  an  adjustment  of  these  im- 
posts as  will  encourage  the  development 
of  the  industrial  interest  of  the  whole 
country;  and  we  commend  that  policy  of 
national  exchange  which  secures  to 
working-men  liberal  wages,  to  agricul- 
ture remunerating  prices,  to  mechanics 
and  manufacturers  adequate  reward  for 
their  skill,  labor,  and  enterprise,  and  to 
the  nation  commercial  prosperity  and 
independence.' 

"Mr.  Lincoln  resumed:  As  with  all 
general  propositions,  doubtless  there  will 
be  shades  of  difference  in  construing 
this.  I  have  by  no  means  a  thoroughly 
matured  judgment  upon  this  subject,  es- 
pecially as  to  details;  some  general  ideas 


are  about  all.  1  have  long  thought  it 
would  be  to  our  advantag-e  to  produce  any 
necessary  article  at  home 'which  can  be 
made  of  as  good  quality  and  with  as  little 
labor  at  home  as  abroad,  at  least  by  the 
difference  of  the  carrying-  from  abroad. 
In  such  case  the  carrying  is  demonstrably 
a  dead  loss  of  labor.  For  instance,  labor 
being  the  true  standard  of  value,  is  it  not 
plain  that  if  equal  labor  get  a  bar  of 
railroad  iron  out  of  a  mine  in  rEngland, 
and  another  out  of  a  mine  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, each  can  be  laid  down  in  a,  track 
at  home  cheaper  than  they  could  ex- 
change countries,  at  least  by  the  car- 
riage? If  there  be  a  present  cause  why 
one  can  be  both  made  and  carried  cheaper 
in  money  price  than  the  other  can  be 
made  without  carrying,  that  cause  is  an 
unnatural  and  injurious  one,  and  ought 
gradually,  if  not  rapidly,  to  be  removed. 
The  condition  of  the  Treasury  at  this 
time  would  seem  to  render  an  early  re- 
vision of  the  Tariff  indispensable.  The 
Morrill  (Tariff)  bill,  now  pending  before 
Congress,  may  or  may  not  become  a  law. 
I  am  not  posted  as  to  its  particular  pro- 
visions, but  if  they  are  generally  satis- 
factory, and  the  bill  shall  now  pass,  there 
will  be  an  end  for  the  present.  If,  how- 
ever, it  shall  not  pass,  I  suppose  the  whole 
subject  will  be  one  of  the  most  pressing 
and  important  for  the  next  Congress.  By 
the  Constitution,  the  Executive  may  rec- 
ommend measures  which  he  may  think 
proper,  and  he  may  veto  those  he  thinks 
improper,  and  it  is  supposed  that  he  may 
add  to  these  certain  indirect  influences 
to  affect  the  action  of  Congress.  My  po- 
litical education  strongly  inclines  me 
against  a  very  free  use  of  any  of  these 
means  by  the  Executive  to  control  the 
legislation  of  the  country.  As  a  rule,  I 
think  it  better  that  Congress  should  orig- 
inate as  well  as  perfect  its  measures 
without  external  bias.  I  therefore  would 
rather  recommend  to  every  gentleman 
wno  knows  he  is  to  be  a  member  of  the 
next  Congress  to  take  an  enlarged  view, 
and  post  himself  thoroughly,  so  as.  to 
contribute  his  part  to  such  an  adjustment 
of  the  Tariff  as  shall  produce  a  sufficient 
revenue,  and  in  its  other  bearings,  so  far 
as  possible,  be  just  and  equal  to  all  sec- 
tions of  the  country  and  classes  of  the 
people  "  ("Complete  Works  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,"  Vol.  VI.    Pages  126-129.) 

Preferred  Home  Trade  to  Foreign  Trade. 

It  should  be  noted  that  Lincoln  at  this 
time  declared  that  it  was  the  duty  of 
the  Republican  party  to  carry  out  its 
Tariff  plank,  which  he  said  "should  be  a 
general  law  to  the  incoming  administra- 
tion." After  listening  to  the  reading  of 
the  platform,  he  asserts  a  very  impor- 
tant economic  proposition.     He  said: 

"For  instance,  labor  being  the  true 
standard  of  value,  is  it  not  plain  that 
if  equal  labor  gets  a  bar  of  railroad  iron 
out  of  a  mine  in  England  and  another 
out  of  a  mine  in  Pennsylvania,  each  can 
be  laid  down  on  a  track  at  home  cheaper 


than  they  could  exchange  countries,  at 
least  by  the  carriage?" 

From  what  follows  it  would  appear 
that  he  here  used  the  words  "equal 
labor"  in  the  sense  of  labor  power  as 
one  would  mention  horse  power.  It  is 
evident  that  it  was  in  this  sense  that  he 
used  the  term  "equal  labor,"  for  in  the 
next  sentence  he  uses  the  term  "money 
price,"   saying: 

"If  there  be  a  present  cause  why  one 
can  be  both  made  and  carried  cheaper  in 
money  price  than  the  other  can  be  made 
without  carrying,  that  cause  is  an  un- 
natural and  injurious  one  and  ought 
gradually  if  not  rapidly  to  be  removed." 

The  money  price  as  here  used  must 
involve  wages  paid  to  labor.  So  his  con- 
tention was  that  if  a  bar  of  iron  can  be 
taken  out  of  a  mine  in  England  and  on 
account  of  the  lower  wages  paid  to  labor 
in  that  country,  -it  can  be  both  produced 
and  shipped  to  the  United  States  and  sold 
for  a  lower  price  than  a  bar  of  iron  can 
be  taken  out  of  an  American  mine  by 
American  labor,  employed  at  the  higher 
American  standard  of  wages,  that  cause 
for  the  difference  in  price  is  an  unnatu- 
ral and  injurious  one  and  should  be  re- 
moved. The  only  way,  of  course,  by 
which  such  injurious  cause  could  be  re- 
moved was  either  by  reducing  the  wage:^ 
of  American  labor  to  the  European  stand- 
ard or  by  interposing  Protective  Tariff 
duties  to  shield  American  labor  from 
such  unequal  and  unjust  conditions.  It 
is  important,  then,  that  immediately  be- 
fore his  inauguration  he  clearly  and 
plainly  asserted  that  when  a  foreign 
country  could  manufacture  and  then 
transport  a  finished  article  to  our  coun- 
try and  undersell  our  own  industrial  pro- 
ducers, a  Protective  Tariff  became  im- 
peratively necessary  in  order  to  over- 
come that  advantage  of  the  foreigner. 
The  value  of  these  utterances  in  the 
Pittsburgh  speech  become  greater  when 
we  consider  the  conditions  under  which 
the  address  was  delivered.  At  this  time 
nearly  all  of  the  Southern  States  had 
seceded  from  the  Union,  and  on  February 
4,  only  eleven  days  before  it  w^as  de- 
livered, the  Southern  Confederacy  was 
formed,  its  Congress  had  met  at  Mont- 
gomery, Alabama,  and  elected  Jefferson 
Davis  President.  The  speech,  like  all  of 
the  speeches  which  he  delivered  in  his 
journey  from  Springfield  to  Washington, 
at  this  critical  time,  was  conciliatory  in 
its  nature.  He  had  studiously  avoided 
the  discussion  of  administrative  policies 
on  all  economic  and  business  questions, 
and  confined  himself  to  appeals  to  the 
patriotism  of  the  people,  urging  on  all 
occasions  the  preservation  of  the  Union 
above  everything  else.  His  great  en- 
deavors was  to  win  over  to  the  support 
of  the  cause  of  the  Union  the  people  of 
the  border  States  and  the  Douglas  Demo- 
crats of  the  Free  States.  He  had,  all 
through  his  discussions  of  the  slavery 
question,  avoided  arousing  the  antagon- 
ism arising  out  of  business  questions,  and 


26 


was  undoubtedly  ready  at  this  time  tO 
make  concessions  for  the  cause  of  peace 
on  all  questions  excepting  those  affect- 
ing the  integrity  of  the  Union,  and  those 
sacred  human  rights  which  the  Republi- 
can party  was  organized  to  preserve,  and 
which  he  had  so  ably  and  earnestly  up- 
held in  those  great  debates  and  speeches 
which  made  him  the  leader  and  repre- 
sentative of  the  friends  of  humanity. 

In  his  address  to  the  Legislature  of 
Pennsylvania,  at  Harrisburg,  February 
22,  1861,  he  referred  to  the  Pittsburg 
speech  as  follows: 

"Allusion  has  also  been  made  by  one 
of  your  honored  speakers  to  some  re- 
marks recently  made  by  myself  at  Pitts- 
burg in  regard  to  yi^hat  is  supposed  to  be 
the  especial  interest  of  this  great  com- 
monwealth of  Pennsylvania.  I  now  wish 
only  to  say  in  regard  to  that  matter, 
that  the  few  remarks  which  I  uttered 
on  that  occasion  vere  rather  carefully 
worded.  I  took  pains  that  they  should 
be  so.  I  have  seen  no  occasion  since  to 
add  to  them  or  subtract  from  them.  I 
leave  them  precisely  as  they  stand,  add- 
ing only  now  that  I  am.  pleased  to  have 
an  expression  from  you,  gentlemen  of 
Pennsylvania,  signifying-  that  they  are 
satisfactory  to  you."  ("Complete  Works 
of  Abraham  Lincoln,"  Vol.  VI.  Pages 
164-165.) 

The     Condition     of    the     Country    Under 
Fourteen  Years  of  Free-Trade. 

With  the  national  treasury  bankrupt; 
the  industries  paralyzed;  the  country 
drained  of  its  gold;  the  war  vessels  in  a 
state  of  decay  or  sent  to  foreign  parts; 
the  army  disorganized  and  filled  with 
traitors;  the  guns  and  cannon  sent  to 
rebel  States;  and  the  Free-Trade  party 
in  open  revolt  against  the  Union,  Lin- 
coln, on  March  4,  1861,  became  President. 
Through  four  years  of  Civil  War,  "with 
malice  towards  no  one  and  charity  for 
all,"  he  united  the  people  of  the  North 
in  the  defense  of  the  flag  and  for  the 
preservation  of  the  Union.  He  raised, 
armed  and  equipped  an  army  of  over 
two  million  of  freemen,  built  a  great 
navy  and  suppressed  the  most  gigantic 
rebellion  of  modern  times.  He  restored 
the  credit  of  the  nation;  replenished  the 
Treasury  and  raised  over  $6,000,000,000 
from  his  own  people,  not  asking  or  bor- 
rowing a  dollar  from  a  foreign  country. 
He  restored  the  Protective  system,  im- 
posing higher  duties  on  imports  than 
•were  ever  known,  and  secured  the  home 
market  to  his  own  people.  Every  mill, 
forge,  furnace;  every  farm  and  garden, 
was  quickened  into  life  as  though 
touched  by  some  magic  power.  Every 
able-bodied  man  was  either  at  the  front 
fighting  for  the  flag  or  working  night 
and  day  in  some  Protective  occupation 
to  sustain  the  armies  in  the  field  and 
make  the  nation  rich  and  strong.  The 
first  question  attended  to  was  that  of 
revenue,  which  was  suj^plied  by  extend- 
ing the  duties  on  imports  to   non-com- 


2? 


petlng-  as  well  as  competing'  articles  by 
the  acts  of  August  5,  1861,  and  December 
24,  1861.  By  the  act  of  July  1,  1862,  a 
system  of  internal  revenue  taxes  was 
established,  which  w^as  enlarged  and  ex- 
tended on  March  3,  1863,  May  7,  1864, 
June  30,  1864,  and  March  3,  1865.  Every 
available  source  of  revenue  was  resorted 
to.  Licenses  and  taxes  were  imposed  on 
every  conceivable  trade,  occupation  and* 
profession.  Taxes  were  levied  on  in- 
comes and  on  all  materials  used  in  man- 
ufacturing and  upon  their  products  in 
all  of  the  stages  of  production.  These 
burdens  placed  on  the  industries  of  the 
country  were  so  great  that  without  com- 
pensatory duties  on  imports  our  manu- 
facturers could  not  have  withstood  the 
competition  of  their  foreign  rivals.  So 
high  Protective  Tariff  duties  were  im- 
posed on  all  competing  products  by  the 
acts  of  July  14,  1862,  March  3,  1863,  April 
29,  1864,  June  30,  1864,  and  March  3, 
1865,  and  the  industries  were  enabled  to 
grow  and  thrive  and  at  the  close  of  the 
struggle  had  been  extended  in  variety 
and  »-eached  a  magnitude  not  dreamed 
of  by  their  most  ardent  friends.    . 

President  Lincoln  ana  his  able  cabinet 
ministers  were  not  unmindful  of  the  les- 
sons of  history.  Almost  w^ithin  the 
memory  of  men  then  living  within  sev- 
enty years,  the  world  had  witnessed 
Great  Britain  pass  triumphantly  through 
the  Continental  wars,  break  the  power 
-of  Napoleon,  the  greatest  military  genius 
since  Caesar;  become  the  master  of  the 
carrying  trade  of  the  world,  and  rise  to 
the  first  rank  among  the  empires  of 
modern  times.  Her  military  and  naval 
forces  and  her  exhaustless  financial  re- 
sources had  been  sustained  through  the 
cultivation  of  the  industrial  arts,  fos- 
tered by  Protective  regulations.  With 
the  experience  of  mankind  before  them, 
the  statesmen  of  the  North  at  once  turned 
to  the  Protective  policy  as  the  source  of 
the  nation's  strength  to  carry  it  suc- 
cessfully through  the  destruction  of 
property  and  exhaustion  of  resources 
•which  must  result  from  the  impending 
military  conflict. 

Stanton's    Protective    Order, 

"Secretary  Stanton,"  says  Mr.  Fowler 
(Fowler's  Life  of  Edward  M.  Stanton, 
pp.  126,  127),  "discovering  that  arms, 
clothing  and  supplies  for  the  armies  were 
largely  purchased  in  Europe,  said  to  Sec- 
retary Chase:  'If  these  things  were  pur- 
chased at  home,  the  flow  of  gold  abroad 
would  be  stopped  and  our  factories  lifted 
from   depression.'  " 

Therefore,  in  the  famous  oflflcial  "Or- 
der" of  January  29,  1862,  he  declared: 

"1.  That  no  further  contracts  be  made 
by  this  Department  or  any  bureau  there- 
of for  any  article  of  foreign  manufac- 
ture that  can  be  produced  in  the  United 
States. 

"2.  All  outstanding  orders,  agencies, 
authorities  or  licenses  for  the  purchase 


of  arms,  clothing-  or  anything  else  in  for- 
eign countries,  or  of  foreign  manufac- 
ture, for  the  Department  are  revoked 
and   annulled." 

Great  and  far-sig'hted  as  this  concep- 
tion proved  to  be,  Lincoln  was  "afraid  it 
would  exasperate  our  friends  over  the 
water,"  and  Seward  opposed  it  as  likely 
to  "complicate  the  foreign  situation." 

"It  will  have  to  be  issued,"  replied 
Stanton,  "or  very  soon  there  will  be  no 
situation  to  complicate." 

"That  closed  the  argument,"  says  Mr. 
Fowler.  "The  order  went  forth  and  cre- 
ated the  industrial  era  in  America, 
against  the  ever-increasing  pressure  of 
which,  throughout  the  world,  the  na- 
tions are  still  groaning  their  protests.  It 
made  of  the  United  States  a  self-sup- 
porting and  ten-fold  more  expansive, 
glorious  and  powerful  nation  than  it  was 
before.  It  was  one  of  the  most  pregnant 
edicts  ever  issued  by  an  American  official, 
and  it  is  one  of  the  few  adequate  meas- 
ures of  Stanton's   g-reatness." 

T^e  security  and  support  given  to  do- 
mestic industries  by  the  Tariff  acts  and 
the  policy  of  the  "War  Department  so  de- 
veloped the  resources  and  increased  the 
w^ealth  of  the  country  that  the  loyal 
'States  soon  became  independent  of  for- 
eign nations  for  everything  necessary  to 
a  successful  prosecution  of  the  war.  The 
wealth  and  industrial  power  thus  created 
enabled  the  people  to  bear  the  enormous 
burdens  of  taxation  incident  to  the  war 
and  to  the  discharg'e  of  the  oblig'ations 
incurred. 

It  has  been  contended  by  Free-Traders 
that  the  Protective  Tariff  laws  signed 
by  Lincoln  were  simply  war  measures 
intended  when  enacted  to  be  abandoned 
at  the  close  of  the  struggle,  and  that  the 
Free-Trade  policy  of  the  Democratic 
party  was  to  be  restored.  This  may  have 
been  the  views  of  many  Congressmen 
who  had  little  knowledge  of  the  ques- 
tion, but  tliis  cannot  reasonably  be  said 
of  Lincoln  when  we  consider  his  pro- 
found knowledge  of  the  subject  and  his 
Arm  conviction  that  Protection  was  nec- 
essary to  the  prosperity  of  the  country. 
The  war  had  brought  about  an  entirely 
new  condition  of  affairs.  The  wages  of 
labor  had  increased  on  an  average  of  67 
per  cent.;  new  mines  had  been  opened; 
mills  and  furnaces  had  been  built;  a 
great  system  of  manufacturing  had  been 
erected;  demands  for  labor  and  labor 
products  had  greatly  extended  and  a 
home  market  had  been  created  which 
was    the    envy    of    the    world.  Lincoln 

would  never  have  withdrawn  Protection, 
left  our  industries  to  perish,  and  the 
Wages  of  labor  to  be  reduced  to  the 
standard  of  the  old  world  by  opening  our 
market  to  be  flooded  with  the  products 
of  the  poorly  paid  labor  of  our  foreign 
rivals. 

It  is  inconceivable  that  Abraham  Lin- 
coln would  have  changed  his  opinions  as 
to  the  wisdom  and  necessity  for  con- 
tinuing the  Protective  system.    His  opin- 


ions on  the  subject  were  well  grounded, 
the  result  of  a  careful  and  thorough 
study  of  the  question  in  all  of  its  as- 
pects. He  was  not  only  by  conviction, 
but  by  sympathy  and  natural  inclination, 
an  extreme  Protectionist.  He  had  no 
sympathy  with  those  international  trad- 
ers who  buy  cheap  in  one  country  to  sell 
in  another,  regardless  of  the  welfare  of 
labor;  nor  with  those  foreign  manufac- 
turers who  would  keep  the  wages  of 
their  labor  at  a  starvation  point  that 
they  might  undersell  their  competitors  in 
foreign  markets;  nor  with  those  short- 
sighted farmers  who  would  impoverish 
the  labor  and  industries  of  their  own 
country  by  patronizing  the  pauper  labor 
of  Europe.  His  fine  sensibilities  had  been 
shocked  and  he  looked  with  horror  upon 
the  Southern  planter  who  made  his  prof- 
its in  raising  cotton  and  tobacco  by  the 
labor  of  slaves  driven  to  work  under  the 
lash  of  a  cruel  master.  His  great  heart 
was  overflowing  with  a  sincere  love  for 
his  fellowmen,  and  an  unfaltering  de- 
votion to  the  welfare  of  his  country.  His 
uttered  words  were  expressions  from  his 
heart  directed  by  a  master  intellect.  He 
was  neither  influenced  in  forming  his 
political  opinions  by  the  interest  of  a 
farmer  seeking  a  market  for  his  grains 
and  provisions,  nor  by  the  desires  of 
those  manufacturers  or  traders  whose 
supreme  purpose  was  to  gain  profits. 
From  a  high  eminence  above  the  world 
of  strife  and  .selfish  interests,  Lincoln 
had  looked  forward  to  a  time  when  the 
people  of  the  United  States  would  enter 
upon  the  full  enjoyment  of  that  happy 
state  contemplated  and  striven  for  by 
our  Revolutionary  fathers,  in  whicla  all 
men  would  stand  equal  before  the  law, 
and  labor  would  be  worthy  of  its  hire. 
He  saw  in  the  future  a  nation  of  freemen 
occupying  a  land  of  plenty,  with  idle- 
ness and  poverty,  slavery  and  oppression 
abolished;  with  marts  of  trade,  cities  and 
industrial  communities  flourishing  and 
thriving  in  every  State  of  the  Union; 
with  the  great  resources  of  the  nation 
developed  and  utilized;  with  mills,  forges, 
furnaces,  farms  and  gardens,  through  the 
industry  of  freemen,  yielding  the  treas- 
ures of  the  earth  tO'  the  comfort,  inde- 
pendence and  happiness  of  the  people. 
This  was  the  goal  striven  for  by  all 
sound  and  consistent  Protectionists.  Pro- 
tection and  prosperity;  Protection  and 
public  welfare;  Protection  and  good 
wages  for  labor,  have  been  and  are  one 
and  inseparable.  If  Abraham  Lincoln  had 
lived  out  the  remaining  years  of  his  sec- 
ond term,  he  would  have  been  the  same 
Abraham  Lincoln  that  he  was  from  his 
humble  beginning  to  the  day  of  his  tragic 
death.  He  never  betrayed  a  great  cause 
nor  sacrificed  a  great  principle.  He  would 
never  have  abandoned  the  cause  of  Pro- 
tection to  American  labor  and  industries. 
He  would  have  done  previously  what 
Grant  and  tlie  great  statesmen  of  the 
Republican  party  did  upon  making  a 
thorough  investigation  of  the  subject  and 


28 


readjusting  the  Tariff  and  internal  reve- 
nue taxes  for  times  of  peace.  During 
Grant's  administration  the  Tariff  was 
revised  according  to  the  plan  recom- 
mended by  Henry  Clay  in  1832,  They 
repealed  internal  revenue  taxes  so  far 
as  they  were  burdens  on  industry, 
abolished  direct  taxes,  and  continued  the 
system  of  duties  on  imports  for  the  Pro- 
tection of  home  industries,  and  by  ani- 
mating, diversifying  and  rewarding  in- 
dustry, made  it  possible  for  the  Ameri- 
can people  to  pay  the  national  debt  and 
to  build  up  the  most  progressive,  pros- 
perous and  greatest  manufacturing  and 
commercial    nation    in    Christendom. 

Lincoln's  public  career  as  a  writer, 
speaker  and  Chief  Executive  places  him 
in  the  foreground  of  the  great  construct- 
ive statesmen  and  Protectionists  of  the 
world.  Washington  introduced  the  sys- 
tem of  Protection,  and  Lincoln  perfected 


it;  Washington  signed  the  first  Protective 
Tariff  law,  and  Lincoln  signed  the  high- 
est Protective  Tariff  law  ever  passed  by 
Congress,  The  Protective  policy  intro- 
duced by  Washington  was  supported  by 
Adams,  Jefferson,  Madison,  Monroe,  John 
Quincy  Adams  and  Andrew  Jackson,  It 
Stood  for  forty-five  years  until  over- 
thrown by  the  friends  of  slavery  and  the 
enemies  of  the  Union,  but  was  restored 
and  perfected  by  Lincoln  and  continued 
by  Grant,  Hayes,  Harrison  and  McKin- 
ley.  It  was  overthrown  for  three  years 
by  Cleveland  with  great  disaster  to  the 
country.  It  is  now  being  assailed  by 
Woodrow  Wilson,  but  the  spirit  of  Wash'- 
ington  and  Lincoln  still  lives  and  the 
end  is  not  yet, 

"You  can  fool  a  part  of  the  people  a 
part  of  the  time,  and  some  of  the  people 
all  of  the  time,  but  you  can't  fool  all  of 
the  people  all  of  the  time." 


Every  sincere  Protectionist  should  reg- 
ularly read  THE  AMERICAN  ECONOMIST, 
$2.00  a  year.  Address  339  Broadway, 
New  York. 


Ten  copies  of  this  document,  No.  1,  sent 
for  30  cents.  Address  The  Tariff  League, 
339  Broadway,  New  York. 


TARIFF  OUT  OF  POLITICS? 


To  Editors:  The  New  York 
Evening  Sun  started  it.  Below 
are  numerous  variations  of  the 
thought  that  the  Tariff  cannot  be 
taken  out  of  politics.  Please  am- 
plify with  one  line  of  your  own. 
Keep  it  going.  Also,  kindly  for- 
ward copy  of  paper  containing 
your  addition.  Editor  American 
Economist. 


"Take  the  Tariff  out  of  politics" — 
'  takfe  the  sentiment  out  of  love." — New 
York  Evening  Sun. 

"Take  the  letters  out  of  the  alphabet." 
— New  York  Press. 

of 


laughter." — 
out    of    air." — Erie 


"And     the     mirth     out 
Philadelphia  Inquirer. 

"Take    the    oxygen 
(Pa.)   Dispatch. 

"Take  business  out  of  business  by 
Free-Trade."— Lyons   (N.  Y.)   Republican. 

"Better  say  the  present  Tariff  put 
notes  on  much  property." — Tazewell 
(Va.)  Republican. 

Take  the  Satan  out  of  Hades, 

Take  the  headache  out  of  booze, 
Take  the  motion  out  of  movies, 
Take   the   sleepiness   from  snooze. 
— Lackawanna    (N.   Y.)    Journal. 
"Oh,  well;  take  the  politics  out  of  poli- 
tics."— New  York  Evening  Sun. 

"Take  the  Prince  of  Denmark  out  of 
Hamlet." — San  Francisco  Chronicle. 


of  verse." — New 


"Take   the  poetry  out 
York  Evening  Sun. 

The  American  Protective  Tariff  League 
desires  us  to  add  a  line  to  "Take  the 
Tariff  out  of  politics."  Anything  to 
oblige:  "Take  the  P.  O.  out  of  pork." — 
Cleveland  Leader. 

"Take  the  people  out  of  politics;  take 
liberty  out  of  government." — Monmouth 
(111.)   Atlas,  January  31. 

"Take  the  heat  out  of  fire." — Secaucus 
(N.  J.)  News,  January  29. 

"Take  daylight  out  of  darkness." — 
Omro   (Wis.)  Herald,  January  29. 

"Take  the  flowers  out  of  speech." — 
New  York  Evening  Sun,  February  3. 

"Take  the  cloves  out  of  prohibition." — 
Idaho  Statesman. 

"Take  the  chat  out  of  a  movie  audi- 
ence."— Coeur  d'Alene   (Idaho)   Press. 

"Take  the  lips  out  of  kisses." — Dover 
(Del.)   Sentinel. 

Take  the  full-house  out  of  poker, 
Take  the  frenzy  from  the  mob, 

Take  the  stroke  from  Willie  Hoppe, 
Take  the  bingle  from  Ty  Cobb. 

— Scottdale    (Pa.)   Independent. 

"Take  the  Tariff  out  of  politics?"  Why, 
sure!  by  all  means — if  you're  the  chap  to 
do  it — and  at  the  same  time  take  the 
heartaches  out  of  booze. — Augusta  (Me.) 
Journal. 

"Take  the  air  out  of  rubber  tires,  take 
the  gas  away  from  glass  making;  it  will 
shrink,  it  will  wither,  it  may  fail  even 
to  survive,  for  'the  devil  take  the  hind- 
most' is  a  motto  we  must  hear;  we'll  live 
it,  too,  by  ginger,  when  the  Free-Traders 
arrive," — Jeanette  (Pa.)  News. 


30 


"Politics  and  the  Tariff  have  been,  are 
and  will  be  as  inseparable  as  sunshine 
and  the  sun — take  the  sun  out  of  sun- 
shine!"— Salisbury  (Md.)  Tribune,  Feb- 
ruary  11. 

"Take  the  laughter  out  of  childhood." 
— Payette  (Idaho)  Independent,  February 
10. 

"Take  the  'kick'  out  of  whiskey." — 
Uoundup   (Mont.)   Record,  February  4. 

"Take  the  Tariff  out  of  politics!  As 
well  try  to  take  the  'pep'  out  of  pepper." 
— Brewster   (Wash.)  Herald. 

If  you  want  to  fix  the  West, 
Take  the  salmon  out  the  can; 

Pinchotize   the   timber. 

Take  aw^-y  from  girls  the  tan. 
— Chinook    (Wa»h.)    Observer. 

"Take  the  flop  out  of  Woodrow." — Bay 
Shore  (L,  I.)  Journal. 

"Take  the  Tariff  out  of  politics,"  shout 
the  Democratic  statesmen  as  a  faint 
hope.  Yes,  take  the  color  out  of  the 
rainbow.  When  the  Democrats  admit 
that  we  are  right  and  they  are  wrong, 
let  us  enact  a  Protective  Tariff,  and  quit 
tampering  with  it.  The  Tariff  will  be 
out  of  politics,  but  not  until  then. — Bata- 
via  (O.)  Courier. 

"Take  Free-Trade  from  Democracy — 
if  you  can." — A  Harmon  (111.)  correspon- 
dent. 

"Take  Hiram  from  the  Johnsonites, 
Take  Teddy  from  the  Progs, 
Take  the  Tariff  out  of  oolitics, 
And  the  world  will  slip  its  cogs." 

— Sanger    (Cal.)   News. 

"Take  the  devil  out  of  all  of  us  and 
there  will  be  less  room  for  pain." — Car- 
mi   (111.)   Convincer,  February. 

"Take  the  Tariff  out  of  politics?" — 
with  ease!  Take  the  wind  out  of  tor- 
nado and  the  water  out  of  seas;  take  the 
light  out  of  sunshine  and  the  cold  out  of 
freeze. 

"Take  the  Tariff  out  of  politics?"  for 
sure!  Take  safe  out  of  safety  and  heal- 
ing out  of  cure;  take  stable  out  of  sta- 
bility— no  nation  will  endure. — Chester- 
ton  (Md.)   Enterprise. 

"Take  the  value  out  of  money, 

Take  the  sting  out  of  bees. 
Take  the  sweetness  out  of  honey. 

Take  the  timber  out  of  trees." 

— Newport   (N.  H.)   Champion. 

"The  talk  of  taking  the  Tariff  out  of 
politics  is  the  same  as  asking  for  taxa- 
tion without  representation." — World's 
Work. 

"While  there  is  a  great  endeavor  to 
take  the  Tariff  out  of  politics  why  does 
not  some  statesman  take  politics  out  of 
the  Tariff?" — Bay  City  (Mich.)  National 
Farmer. 

"Take  the  Tariff  out  of  politics?  Take 
the  hugs  and  kisses  out  of  spooning." — 
Marion    (111.)   anonymous  correspondent. 

"Take  the  substance  out  of  flour  and 
the  sweetness  out  of  sugar." — Trenton 
(Mich.)   Times. 

"Take  the  Stars  from  the  field  of  Old 
Glory." — Huntingburg  (Ind.)  Iruiepen- 
dent. 

"Take  the  value  out  of  money. 
Take  the  pleasure  out  of  fun, 
Take  the  sweetness  out  of  honey; 
Take — Oh,  what's  the  use?      It  can't  be 

done." 
— Plymouth   (Mass.)   News,  March  24. 


"Take  the  1  out  of  100." — Milwaukee 
Sentinel. 

Tak?  the  lesson  from  the  learner, 
Take  the  writing  from  the  clerk; 

Take  the  earnlng-s  from  the  earner, 
And  the  worker  from  his  work. 

— Gladstone    (Mich.)    Delta. 

"Take  the  Tariff  out  of  politics."  Why 
not  take  "e"  out  of  alphabet,  or  laughter 
out  of  childhood? — Ashtabula  (O.)   Star. 

"Take  the  Tariff  out  of  politics," 
Take  the  moisture  out  of  rain, 
Take  the  colors  from  the  rainbow. 
Take  the  kernel  out  of  grain. 

— Brookneld  (Mo.)   Gazette. 

"Take  the  Tariff  out  of  politics?  Not 
till  we  have  absolute  Free-Trade." — 
Union  (N.  Y.)  Union-Endicott  News, 

"Take  the  raindrops  out  of  showers; 
take  the  fragrance  out  of  flowers." — 
Ord.   (Nebr.)   Quiz. 

"Or  take  the  'Bull'  out  of  'Bull 
Moose.'  " — Grand  Rapids  (Mich.)  Herald. 

"Take  the  stars  and  stripes  out  of  our 
flag.  Take  hope  out  of  life." — American 
^<]coNOMiST  reader. 

"  'Take  the  Tariff  out  of  politics,'  says 
the  New  York  Sun.  Take  the  angel-  out 
of  heaven;  take  the  cooing  from  the 
dove;  take  the  warble  from  the  birdlet; 
take  religion  out  of  love." — Elkton 
(Mich.)   Review. 

"They  can't  take  the  Tariff  out  of  poli- 
tics, but  they  can  take  it  out  of  the  hands 
of  the  Free-Trade  Tariff  tinkers." — Kan-  . 
sas  City   (Mo.)   Liberal  News. 

"Take  the  Tariff  out  of  politics?  It 
is  a  cry  born  of  forlorn  hope.  It  is  as 
feasible  as  to  try  to  take  the  lye  out  of 
soft  soap." — Tahlequah   (Okla.)   Sun. 

"The  differences  of  opinion  and  convic- 
tion which  put  the  Tariff  question  into 
politics  are  not  differences  as  to  facts, 
but  as  to  the  interpretation  of  facts. 
Hence  the  fallacy  of  'taking  the  Tariff 
question  out  of  politics'  by  creating  a 
mere  statistical  board,  bureau  or  com- 
mission."— Muncie  (Ind.)  National  Repub- 
lican. 

Take  the  Tariff  out  of  politics, 
Take   the  motor  from  the  car; 
Take  the  talk  out  of  Teddy; 
Take   the   battle   out  of  war. — Hancock 
(Mich.)   Copper  Journal. 

"Take  disaster  from  our  labor  and  indus- 
tries without  the  re-establishment  of  a 
High  Protective  Tariff."— Breaux  Bridge 
(La.)   Advance. 

"Take  the  Tariff  out  of  politics!"  Take 
the  gas  out  o'  gasoline  and  the  "old 
boat"  will  stop;  take  the  electricity  out 
o'  the  arc  and  darkness  will  prevail. — 
Caldwell  (O.)  Leader. 

Trying  to  take  the  Tariff  out  of  poli- 
tics is  causing  President  Wilson  a  good 
deal  of  anxiety,  and  he  is  sidestepping 
like  a  barefooted  boy  in  a  brier  patch. — 
Bethany  (Mo.)  Republican. 

"Take  the  Tariff  out  of  politics?  Might 
as  well  take  the  honey  out  of  the  honey- 
moon,"— Rhinelander   (Wis.)   News. 


31 


"Take  the  limbernes.s  from  11:;11k:-, 

Take  the  spiciness  from  kpice, 
Take  the  wood  from  out  the  timber, 
Take  the  water  out  of  ice. 
(Next?)" — ^Astria     (Ore.)     Morning    Asto- 
rian. 

"Take  the  Tariff  out  of  politics? 

Take  the  moisture  out  of  snow. 
Take  the  'our'  out  of  flour. 

And  the  'leven'  out  of  dough." 

— Fedora   (S.   D.)    Messenger. 

"Take  the  Tariff  out  of  politics!  You 
might  as  well  try  to  take  the  bung  out 
of  bungle." — Decorah   (la.)    Republican. 

"As  well  try  taking  selfishness 
From  out  the  heart  of  man; 
For  the  Demys,  in  their  foolishness, 
Will  make  trade  free  if  they  can." 
— Columbus  (O.)  Saturday  Monitor. 

"If  the  Tariff  were  taken  out  of  poli- 
tics what  would  Presidential  candidates 
do  for  an  issue?" — ^Mobile  (Ala.)  Tribune. 

"The  Tariff  can  be  taken  out  of  politics 
as  easily  as  the  'squeal'  can  be  taken 
from  the  pig  and  the  'squall'  from  the 
tomcat." — A  North  Carolina  correspon- 
dent. 

"Removing  the  Tariff  out  of  politics 
would  be  about  as  easy  as  taking  the 
hole  out  of  the  doughnut." — Muncie 
(Ind.)  National  Republican. 

Take  the  Tariff  out  of  politics. 
Take   the   sweet   out   of  sugar. 
Take  the  jingle  out  of  money. 
Take — well,    miracles    do    not    happen 
any  more, — Huntsville  (Ark,)  Republican, 

What  is  the  use  of  talking  about  "re- 
tiring the  Tariff  from  politics,"  It  can- 
not be  done. — ^Marion   (la.)   Register. 

Taking  Tariff  out  of  politics  is  like 
taking  salt  out  of  soup. — Waterloo  (111.) 
Republican. 

To  take  Tariff  out  of  Politics 

And  let  Free-Trade  prevail " 
Is  just  a  Democratic  trick 

That  takes  food  from  the  dinner  pail. 
— Craig  (Colo.)   Courier. 

"Take  the  Tariff  out  of  politics,"  shout 
the  Democratic  statesmen  as  a  faint 
hope.  Yes,  take  the  color  out  of  the 
rainbow.  When  the  Democrats  admit 
that  we  are  right  and  they  are  wrong, 
let  us  enact  a  Protective  Tariff  and  quit 
tampering  with  it.  The  Tariff  will  be 
out  of  politics,  but  not  until  then. — La 
Plata  (Mo.)   Republican. 

Removing  the  Tariff  from  politics  is 
like  solving  the  fourth  dimension — es- 
pecially when  it  comes  to  wool. — Ameri- 
can Sheep  Breeder  and  Wool  Grower. 

Taking,  the  Tariff  out  of  politics  al- 
ways reminds  us  of  the  hospital  report 
of  the  medical  interne  wlio  wrote  his 
chief:  "The  operation  proved  preemi- 
nently successful,  but  the  patient  died." 
— American     Economist     Contributor. 

"Take  the  notes  out  of  music." — Amer- 
ican  Economist. 


The   Industrial    Developmenl 

of  Nations 


and 


A  History  of  the  Tariff  Policies  of  the  United  States,  and  of  Great  Britc 
Germany,  France,  Russia  and  Other  European  Countries 


BY 
Hon.  GEORGE  B.  CURTISS 

OF  BINGHAMTON,  NEW  YORK 


The  Work  of  a  Lifetime  » 

The  Industrial  Development  of  Nations  is  the  result  of  more  tl 
thirty  years'  research  and  study.   It  is  the  work  of  a  lifetime  and  has  involl 
in  its  production  the  largest  financial  expenditure  of  any  single  treatise 
the  subject  ever  published. 

the  author 

The  qualifications  of  Mr.  Curtiss  for  this  important  undertaking  need  not  be  rehearsed  for  those] 
are  familiar  with  his  distinguished  career  as  a  lawyer  and  the  pre-eminent  position  he  holds  at  thej 
In  1900,  President  McKinley  appointed  him  United  States  Attorney  for  the  Northern  District  of 
York,  a  posit**on  he  has  filled  with  marked  distinction  for  more  than  twelve  years. 

The  Binghamton  Press. 


Price 
Bound  in  Fancy  Basket  Buckram  (gilt  top,  gold  back,  with  silk  ribbon,  bookmark)  $li 

In  Three  Volumes  of  1936  pages.  Size  7x10  inches.  Illustrated  with  33 
page  portraits.  The  pages  have  subject  headings,  marginal  notes,  and  are  prini 
admirably  clear  type.  The  binding  is  all  that  is  to  be  desired.  All  of  the  httle  del 
of  good  book-making  have  been  observed. 


T.    W.    COMPTON 

Sales  Manager 

160  Fifth  Avenue  New  York 


Orders  received  by 

THE  AMERICAN   PROTECTIVE  TARIFF  LEAGU 

339    Broadway 
New  York 


T.  M.  Reg.  U.S.  Pat.  Off. 


IVI145504 


111 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


